“EfcYSIA” 


Property  of 

jLcjRmj  JL.  @uaffi 


i 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
URBANA 


F;  R /;  R 


i (I 


ELYSIA 

A Prophecy 

The  Freedom,  Nationalism,  Christianity 
of  a Better  State 


Property  of 


y£c/ioij  JL  @ua (A 

Iz-  7 


HORATIO  C.  BENT,  B.  S.,  LL.  B. 

BLOOMINGTON,  ILL 


Copyright,  1913. 

By 

HORATIO  C.  BENT,  B.  S.,  LL.  B. 
Bloomington,  111. 


401  I II; 

utmcsn  (i  ,im' 


I I 1 626 1 


ELYSIA 

The  Answer  of  Individualism 

It  is  the  coming  Political  Power. 

It  is  Christianity  revived,  invigorated,  prac- 
ticed. 

It  is  a Nationalism  with  a meaning. 

It  appeals  to  the  honest.  It  convinces  the  con- 
scientious. It  converts  the  skeptical.  It  trans- 
lates the  intentions  of  the  thoughful  and,  progres- 
sive into  a concerted  and  powerful  action. 

If  its  principles  meet  with  your  approval  com- 
mend it  to  your  friends,  disseminate  it,  let  it  take 
root. 


INTRODUCTION 


It  is  the  tendency  to  turn  to  the  state  as  the 
remedy  for  the  evils  of  society,  in  the  mistaken 
belief  that  movement  need  but  be  concerted  and 
social  to  be  right  and  justifiable,  rather  than  as 
Christianity  would  have  us,  to  the  individual  as 
the  primary  unit  in  social  reconstruction. 

The  purpose  of  the  writer  is  to  overcome  this 
wayward  and  mistaken  tendency,  to  build  his 
state  from  the  individual,  to  Christianize  the  man 
before  he  creates  his  state,  to  recognize  first  the 
fundamental  natural  rights,  the  highest  system 
of  moral  law,  and  not  build  upon  those  wrongs 
which  are  within,  the  resultant  of  ideas  socially 
and  wrongly  conceived  and  basically  false. 

To  present  a political  course  of  action,  demo- 
cratic, individual,  practical.  One  which  the  la- 
boring man  and  the  business  man  will  recognize 
immediately  as  logical,  patriotic  and  Christian. 
That  is  devoid  of  the  materialism  which  renders 
others  obnoxious  and  unsatisfactory.  That  dig- 
nifies labor,  recognizes  the  benefits  of  science  as 
a product  of  individualism,  is  not  iconoclastic  or 
revolutionary,  but  a transition  gradual  and  in- 

5 


ELYSIA 


evitable,  if  society  is  not  to  fall  back  into  the 
idolatry  of  materialism,  and  the  stagnation  of 
ignorant  and  mistaken  social  conceptions. 

To  show  that  the  ethical  and  religious  in  our 
National  life,  a higher  idealism,  must  be  the  foun- 
dation of  all  political  progress,  and  that  by  build- 
ing upon  this  higher  conception  is  the  assurance 
of  a greater  and  nobler  system  of  government. 


6 


ELYSIA 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  STATE 

Before  presenting  the  remedy,  the  solution  of 
our  Governmental  problems,  it  will  be  first  nec- 
essary that  an  approach  be  made  in  a state  of 
mind,  free  from  the  narrow  bias  of  personal  ad- 
vantage, uninfluenced  by  private  motive,  but  only 
by  a generosity,  considerate  and  honest,  a highly 
conscientious,  truly  Christian  sense  of  fraternal 
obligation. 

The  State,  whether  we  will  or  not,  is  the  creat- 
ure of  that  influence  that  silently,  continuously 
and  ever  more  powerfully,  works  within,  inde- 
pendent, yet  at  the  same  time,  the  determinator 
of  its  form  and  substance. 

The  Church  as  a moral  influence  in  a commun- 
ity, Christianity  as  it  is  appreciated  and  applied, 
is  the  determinating  factor  as  to  the  strength, 
the  durability,  the  sufficiency  of  the  State. 

Christianity  is  undeniable  truth,  the  ultimate 
law.  The  Church  is  Christian  as  it  understands 
and  preaches  it,  the  individual  as  he  applies  it. 

7 


ELYSIA 


As  the  Church  is  narrow  and  weak  in  its  con- 
ception of  Christianity,  the  State  is  inefficient, 
and  as  the  tone  of  Christian  thought  is  elevated 
and  broadened,  as  the  Church  performs  the  pur- 
pose of  its  existence,  the  State  approaches  more 
closely  that  perfection  of  form  and  substance  that 
is  enduring,  just,  progressive  and  satisfying. 

A condemnation  of  the  State  is  but  a censure 
of  the  Church,  a plea  for  an  enlightened  and  an 
extended  Christianity,  a call  to  a higher  concep- 
tion, the  prayer  of  a struggling  and  unperceptive 
people. 

And  so  we  find  the  relation  of  Church  and 
State  undeniable.  The  State  is  but  the  Church’s 
handiwork;  the  Church  is  but  Christian  thought, 
and  Christian  thought  is  but  a realization  of  the 
intent  and  meaning  of  the  idealism  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  Trinity  of  human  activities — 
Church,  State,  Christianity — are  an  inseparable 
unit  in  their  perfection. 

So  he  who  touches  the  problems  of  the  State, 
who  would  advise  as  to  those  policies  to  be  pur- 
sued, must  be  governed  by  the  highest  concep- 
tions, the  deepest  and  most  reverential  of  mo- 
tives, and  he  who  would  have  improvement,  who 
would  desire  a progress,  must  recognize  and  fol- 

8 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  STATE 


low  the  Christian,  in  the  real  sense  of  being,  the 
highest  and  loftiest  of  his  understanding. 

The  State  is  reverenced  as  Christianity  is  a 
power  and  a reality,  undeniable,  convincing,  up- 
lifting, ennobling ; teaching  in  the  lessons  of  prac- 
tice the  possibilities  of  the  future,  inspiring 
thoughts  of  immortality  in  life  rather  than  in 
that  of  death’s  uncertainty,  with  a faith  and  op- 
timism ever  increasing,  a joyousness  ever  more 
deep  and  real,  as  the  hold  upon  life  becomes 
stronger  and  the  feeling  of  kinship  extends  be- 
yond the  confines  of  family  into  those  of  society. 
Making  Religion  not  a creed,  nor  a philosophy 
of  Death,  but  a habit  of  life,  that  strikes  a re- 
sponse in  every  manly  heart,  that  imagines  man 
the  perfection  that  he  is,  and  to  realize  him  the 
ultimate  purpose  of  Life,  which  the  State  as  a 
Paternal  Power  ever  encourages  and  protects. 


9 


CHRISTIANITY. 


Religion  as  mortality  lias  reached  the  extent  of 
its  development,  the  limit  of  its  toleration.  Men 
are  not  naturally  seekers  of  another  world,  but 
finders  of  the  substance  of  this.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  men  should  rest  satisfied  with 
promises  of  another  world  when  satisfaction  in 
this  is  the  chief  desire  of  future  longing.  It  is 
the  present  that  gives  best  proof  of  the  future. 
It  is  its  tendency  and  achievements  that  are  the 
best  criterions  of  a future  expectancy.  The 
promises  of  religion  as  being  those  of  another 
world  are  but  the  faithless  thoughts  of  the  God- 
less and  agnostic,  but  the  believer  is  a follower 
of  present  optimism,  with  hopes  of  a greater 
present  and  a transcendent  future,  which  the 
power  of  the  Almighty  renders  real  and  lasting 
as  that  internal  force  known  as  Christianity 
plays  an  ever  greater  part  in  the  activities  of 
men. 

Christianity  then  is  of  this  world.  A power 
not  to  be  denied.  A force  never  listless  nor  un- 
successful, but  always  progressive,  never  failing 
as  it  is  truthfully  understood  and  wisely  applied, 

10 


CHRISTIANITY 


but  is  ever  present,  ever  laboring,  ever  practiced 
by  those  who  believe  it,  who  feel  it  as  a present 
need  and  would  not  retard  its  expanding  power. 

For  those  who  seek  Heaven  in  the  next  world 
rather  than  in  this,  scarcely  appreciate  the  mean- 
ing of  Christianity,  and  have  little  faith  in  it  as  a 
transcendant  law.  It  is  a living  power  in  the  af- 
fairs of  men  that  commands  attention,  gains  pre- 
cedence in  their  thought  and  molds  them  into  an 
appreciative  and  active  understanding.  Such  is 
Christianity,  which  in  righteous  application  con- 
cerns, not  the  dead  nor  death,  but  the  living  and 
life,  and  is  faith  and  hope  in  the  power  of  love  as 
the  ultimate  law,  satisfying  and  complete  and  un- 
der which  we  live  to  our  hearts  content  with  de- 
sire fulfilled. 

Which  means  that  in  Life  there  is  hope  and  the 
expectancy  of  much,  and  in  death  there  need  be 
no  fear  if  the  harvest  of  life  is  full  and  complete. 

So  tarry  in  the  fervor  of  your  creed  and  the 
thought  of  mortality,  and  consider  the  lilies  of 
the  field  how  they  grow,  they  toil  not,  neither  do 
they  spin,  and  wherefore,  in  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity, should  the  life  of  man  be  hardship  and  his 
existence  problematical  ? 


n 


MAN. 


Man  is  but  Time  and  Place  in  combination. 

A child  is  born  into  the  world  and  irrespective 
of  all  other  things  there  is  stamped  in  and  be- 
queathed to  him  at  his  very  birth  a certain  length 
of  time.  By  this  I would  not  have  you  think  I 
am  a fatalist,  but  rather  that  his  physical  strength 
and  vigor,  his  natural  intuition,  prescribe  for  him 
in  the  course  of  nature  a life  of  definite  duration, 
and  if  by  chance  there  are  forces  that  terminate 
the  period  of  his  existence  sooner  than  his  want, 
we  find  mistake,  his  murder. 

This  natural  heritage  to  live,  his  Time,  is  a 
gift  of  a transcendant  law,  and  law  is  law,  only 
as  it  preserves  the  fullest  measure  of  Time’s 
fruitive  power. 

But  Time  is  not  the  wherewithal  upon  which  a 
man  can  live.  He  must  have  Place  as  a recipro- 
cating power.  And  Time’s  adjustment  to  the 
Place  he  has,  determines  his  success  or  failure  in 
the  world.  And  so  we  have  in  man,  a creature  of 
both  Time  and  Place.  The  whole  end  of  life  be- 
ing but  to  bring  these  two  to  an  adjustment.  And 
Law  to  insure  Time  assures  a Place.  One  is  of 
the  other  wrought,  both  much  alike. 

12 


GOVERNMENT 


The  idealisms  of  the  human  race,  of  Liberty, 
Progress,  Fraternity,  all  are  but  different  names 
for  a common  state  that  has  its  end  in  Christ’s 
great  thought  of  Love  itself. 

They  serve  their  purpose  in  that  they  but  pave 
the  way  and  are  but  means  to  the  ultimate 
thought  of  man’s  great  place. 

But  what  is  Liberty  if  it  be  not  Love,  and  what 
is  Love  if  it  be  not  Life,  and  what  is  Life  if  it  be 
not  Free,  and  what  is  Freedom  but  Harmony  of 
Time  and  Place?  And  here  creeps  in  the  pro- 
vince of  the  State,  the  Law.  Amidst  the  conflict- 
ing passions  of  mankind  to  preserve  the  higher 
and  restrain  the  lower.  Maintain  a peace  and 
hold  always  open  the  gate  of  opporunity,  which 
is  no  more  nor  less  than  freedom.  For  Govern- 
ment if  it  do  naught  but  preserve  the  Time  and 
Place  of  man,  affords  him  all  the  opportunity 
that  he  need,  protects  him  in  all  the  natural  rights 
he  has  and  gives  him  all  he  honestly  can  demand. 

But  if  it  through  mistake  attempts  at  more 
than  this,  it  shirks  the  only  purpose  that  it  right- 
fully has.  The  problem  of  Time  and  Place,  the 
preservation  of  internal  peace,  is  the  chief  con- 
cern of  Governmental  Parentage. 


SOCIETY 


Man  comes  into  the  world  through  no  fault  or 
purpose  of  his  own,  but  rather  through  the  desire 
of  those  who  come  before  and  choose  his  being. 
Now  it  is  not  right  that  when  he  comes  robbery 
should  meet  him  at  the  cradle,  impoverish  rather 
than  nourish  him,  and  teach  him  from  his  birth 
a false  doctrine  of  success,  that  measures  life  not 
by  what  he  creates,  but  by  the  amount  he  takes 
to  himself  from  his  fellows.  Eather  should  it  be 
that  presents  be  awaiting  him,  that  wise  men  ap- 
preciate him,  that  his  first  conception  be  that 
there  is  a place  made  ready,  a welcome,  that  he 
may  feel  a natural  impulse  to  be  generous  in  fill- 
ing it. 

Embarrassed  would  one  feel  at  a hospitality 
that  offers  a cold  hand,  a sharp  look  and  a ques- 
tioning gaze.  That  gives  no  promise  of  refresh- 
ment nor  affords  an  opportunity  for  rest.  That 
would  have  the  visit  as  short  as  possible  and 
the  exit,  as  the  the  entrance,  unheralded. 

Embarrassment  that  makes  an  enemy  of  a 
friend  who  might  return  even  a hundredfold  in 
time  of  need  a favor  that  meant  no  sacrifice. 


14 


SOCIETY 


But  such  is  not  the  case ; for  the  great  majority 
there  is  no  place  made  ready.  At  birth  there  is 
imposed  a task  which  becomes  greater  as  age  im- 
poses obligation,  and  when  at  last  he  falls  in  with 
decrepitude  it  is  hard  to  understand  why  he  has 
stored  so  little.  One  reason  is  he  was  not  born 
a free  man  and  never  became  one.  Each  year  of 
his  life  he  paid  one-half  his  earnings  as  tempo- 
rary ransom  for  the  freedom  of  place.  He  lived 
from  day  to  day,  year  to  year,  paying  heavily 
for  the  privilege  of  existence.  Of  such  men  there 
are  many,  industrious,  economical,  valuable,  but 
the  very  fact  of  their  enjoyment  of  the  higher 
and  more  commendable  of  society’s  opportunities 
has  kept  them  struggling  and  worrying.  Men 
live  strenuously  when  they  should  live  peace- 
fully, labor  when  they  should  rest,  become  nar- 
row when  they  should  become  broad,  and  because 
they  fail  to  see  the  operation  of  divine  law  in  the 
activities  of  men  turn  skeptic  and  join  themselves 
with  their  enemies.  Not  understanding  the  prob- 
lem of  which  they  are  a part,  not  understanding 
themselves  and  their  consequent  rights  and  privi- 
leges, they  loose  faith  in  the  practicality  of  higher 
law  and  pronounce  a severe  judgment  that  so- 
ciety is  and  can  be  naught  but  a limitation  of  Hell. 

15 


ELYSIA 


Now,  if  such  is  the  idea  of  many  who  are  tem- 
perate, industrious  and  frugal,  intemperance 
leads  but  to  exaggerated  thought  and  aggravated 
action.  Criminality  is  but  the  fruit  of  injustice. 
If  we  would  be  our  brother ’s  friend,  be  Christian 
in  its  primal  conception,  exploitation  cannot  be 
the  basis  of  our  excuse. 

For  if  you  exploit  a man  as  to  his  Place  you  rob 
him  as  to  his  Time,  and  slavery,  serfdom,  murder 
are  naught  but  being  unbrotherly. 

The  failure  in  the  preservation  to  a man  of 
Place  is  the  resultant  wrongs  that  beset  men  in 
the  problems  of  government. 


h 


16 


EXPLOITATION 


Society  resolves  itself  into  two  great  classes — 
Exploiters  and  Exploited;  the  third  is  so  small  it 
need  not  here  be  mentioned.  You  probably  be- 
long to  one  class  or  the  other.  At  the  present 
time  a man  and  his  family  are  worth  about  $5,- 
000.00  in  the  market.  A difference  between 
economic  and  legalized  slavery  is  that  in  one 
instance  the  public  does  not  know  and  has  no 
means  of  finding  out  the  exact  price  and  in  the 
other  it  has.  The  economic  is  the  more  polite 
and  politic,  but  it  is  just  about  twice  that  amount 
that  elevates  a man  from  a position  where  he 
must  labor  and  support  two  families  to  that 
where  his  own  is  supported.  We  all  desire  suc- 
cess, but  its  chief  meaning  is  to  elevate  oneself 
from  the  exploited  to  the  exploiters.  A success- 
ful man  is  generally  a man  of  wealth,  and  his 
wealth  is  almost  invariably  capital  and  has  ex- 
ploitationary power.  Practically  all  wealth  the 
moment  it  is  created  resolves  itself  under  our 
present  system  into  capital.  A man  cannot  have 
wealth  unless  he  be  a capitalist  and  an  exploiter. 
Wealth  for  that  very  reason  is  enslaving  man. 

17 


ELYS  I A 


If  we  could  have  wealth  that  was  not  capital  we 
would  be  a most  wonderful  people.  Our  hanks 
would  be  so  full  of  money  that  you  would  almost 
have  to  pay  the  borrower.  Pay  the  banker  to 
take  care  of  it,  as  though  you  were  putting  it  in 
a Safe  Deposit  vault. 

But,  as  money  in  the  eyes  of  our  present  think- 
ers does  so  much  and  man  so  little,  it  is  in  great 
demand,  greater  sometimes  than  man  himself. 
The  reason  for  this  is  that  so  many  live  on  money 
that  there  is  an  under  production  and  insuf- 
ficiency of  natural  necessities. 

At  the  end  of  the  year,  with  the  assistance  of 
those  who  live  on  money,  we  have  eaten  up  most 
everything  and  worn  out  nearly  everything,  and 
the  great  majority  must  borrow  enough  to  last 
until  the  next  pay  day. 

Wealth  as  wealth  is  a good  thing,  but  as  capi- 
tal it  is  a curse  to  the  human  race;  the  encour- 
agement of  indolence  and  all  of  its  vices.  So  at 
the  place  where  wealth  resolves  itself  into  capi- 
tal, it  is  well  to  question  it,  to  diminish  its  power 
over  the  people  and  protect  them  in  their  free- 
dom. 

Now  wealth  resolves  itself  into  capital,  not  in 
the  air  we  breathe,  nor  in  the  Sun  that  shines, 

18 


EXPLOITATION 


not  in  the  abstraction  of  thought,  nor  in  the  vivid- 
ness of  imagination,  but  as  is  and  can  only  be 
the  case,  upon  a very  substantial  and  material 
footing,  the  solid  ground  upon  which  we  live. 
And  wherever  and  whenever  land  is  permitted  to 
be  a basis  of  exploitation,  there  capitalism  is,  and 
it  grows  and  thrives  as  land  exploitation  is  in- 
creased and  extended  under  selfish  and  autocratic 
law. 


LAND  EXPLOITATION 

The  idea  that  land  exploitation  is  the  basis  of 
mnch  social  and  governmental  wrong  is  not  new. 
It  has  had  consideration  in  the  writings  of  many 
of  our  most  renowned  and  reputable  political  and 
social  authorities,  but  their  remedies  have  been 
so  Utopian  and  their  application  involved  so  con- 
siderable a change  that  their  thought  has  had 
but  a limited  influence  upon  governmental  pro- 
cedure. The  existing  order  changeth  but  slowly. 
Eeformation  is  a long-drawn-out  and  difficult 
process.  It  is  not  the  end  that  attracts  the  mind 
and  attaches  to  itself  practicality  so  much  as  the 
methods  towards  its  achievement.  It  is  only  as 
the  means  are  at  hand  and  the  steps  unfolded 
that  effort  is  made  toward  accomplishment.  But 
our  land  system  is  wrong,  and  it  is  wrong  be- 
cause it  has  been  capitalized.  And  of  all  things 
that  deny  the  truth  of  the  definition  of  capital  as 
savings  it  is  a most  striking  example.  Capital 
is,  as  has  been  said,  wealth  in  the  process  of  ex- 
ploitation, and  landed  wealth  is  no  exception  to  the 
rule.  Now  land  has  been  capitalized,  and  this 
capitalization  is  continually  increasing  for  sev- 

20 


LAND  EXPLOITATION 

f 

eral  reasons.  There  is  a limited  amount  to  be 
had.  The  demands  upon  the  land  are  ever  in- 
creasing with  the  growth  of  population  and  the 
pressure  and  requirements  of  social  advance. 
The  cost  of  its  protection  is  continually  decreas- 
ing with  its  increased  value  and  the  burden  of 
this  increased  cost  is  being  shifted  onto  improve- 
ments and  personalty.  That  is  from  the  should- 
ers of  the  land  owners  upon  the  backs  of  the  peo- 
ple, irrespective  of  the  protection  they  receive, 
and  their  necessity  for  it.  Here  is  the  reason 
and  it  is  well  founded  for  those  ideas  ranging 
from  Anarchy  to  Socialism.  The  poor  man  is  a 
disinterested  party  who  labors  and  pays  for  a 
protection  that  exploits  him.  He  can’t  be  blamed 
for  he  is  right,  and  unless  men  realize  a few  prin- 
ciples of  justice  aside  from  protection  of  prop- 
erty, the  whole  system  will  swing  from  despotism 
to  anarchy  and  the  compromise  of  justice  remain 
disregarded.  There  may  be  such  a thing  as  right 

>■  to  property,  but  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a right 

to  exploit  with  property,  for  with  exploitation 
creeps  in  injustice,  and  the  whole  purpose  of  the 
law  if  society  is  to  remain  free  and  the  state 
just,  is  to  prevent  this  exploitation  as  far  as  pos- 
sible. Now  the  foundation  of  all  wealth,  the 

21 


ELYSIA 


source  of  all  opportunity,  the  basis  of  all  free- 
dom, the  beginning  of  all  natural  right,  is  land, 
and  when  you  capitalize  place,  you  capitalize  man 
and  the  whole  social  system  under  which  he  op- 
erates. The  basic  thing  is  not  to  prevent  land 
being  capitalized,  hut  land  becoming  wealth,  for 
if  land  is  not  first  wealth,  it  can  never  become 
capital.  Wealth  is  that  which  has  value  in  ex- 
change, and  if  land  has  but  little  value  in  ex- 
change it  represents  but  little  wealth.  Land  value 
is  a mortgage  on  society.  Land  means  Liberty. 
So  the  whole  process  of  the  law  should  be  to  pre- 
vent as  far  as  possible  land  having  value  in  ex- 
change, and  to  render  it  at  all  times  as  easy  of 
access  as  possible.  This  can  never  be  done  under 
our  present  system  of  land  ownership,  which  is 
becoming  more  and  more  independent  of  the 
state,  with  a stewardship  ever  less  likely  to  be 
called  to  account.  It  is  simply  a strife  as  to  who 
can  seize  upon  the  most  territory.  There  is  no 
reason  for  it,  it  is  not  in  harmony  with  law,  nor  a 
necessity  for  it,  but  is  a most  anarchic  and  des- 
potic procedure,  capitalizing  and  upsetting  every- 
thing. If  land  is  tilled  when  the  owner  gets  half 
and  the  tiller  half,  it  would  yet  be  tilled  if  the 
tiller  got  the  whole  thing.  An  unrestricted  own- 

22 


LAND  EXPLOITATION 


ership  is  far  from  an  incentive  to  increased  ef- 
fort, and  if  we  have  tillers  now  we  would  yet 
have  tillers  if  those  who  did  not  till  never  inter- 
fered. In  other  words,  a man  who  does  not  work 
never  inspires  another  with  the  idea.  Our  civili- 
zation does  not  need  landlords  to  make  it  pro- 
gressive, but  farmers  and  producers.  Those  who 
theorize  that  their  work  as  boss  is  necessary  to 
obtain  anything  out  of  a man  are  badly  mistaken. 
A man  is  his  own  best  boss.  Their  sympathy  for 
their  fellows  is  sadly  misdirected  and  society 
would  be  better  off  if  they  first  took  good  care  of 
themselves. 

Now  there  are  many  who  have  favored  nation- 
alization and  socialism  proceeds  on  that  theory, 
but  it  is  not  here  the  purpose  to  advocate  such  a 
scheme  of  land  tenure,  for  there  is  a better 
method,  more  suited  to  present  standards  and 
present  conditions.  Nationalization  in  its  in- 
cipiency  necessitates  a working  over  of  our  pres- 
ent system  productive  of  unnecessary  commo- 
tion, change  and  unrest,  and  conducive  to  a feel- 
' ing  of  insecurity  and  injustice.  The  problem  is, 
not  to  upset  society,  but  inculcate  into  it  a differ- 
ent working  order,  that  in  itself  will  slowly,  al- 
most imperceptibly  change  the  whole  modern 

23 


ELYSIA 


tendency.  Nationalization  is  not  necessary,  for 
it  is  not  expedient.  It  partakes  of  an  imperson- 
ality, an  autocracy  that  is  to  be  avoided  as  much 
as  possible.  The  individual  does  not  exist  for  the 
state,  but  the  state  for  the  individual.  Independ- 
ence cannot  be  achieved  where  there  is  no  free- 
dom of  choice,  nor  justice  be  where  there  is  no 
trial  of  effort.  A man  has  a right  to  obtain  that 
which  he  desires,  irrespective  and  independent 
of  any  intermediary  providing  his  desire  is  sane 
and  his  method  honorable.  He  has  a right  to 
change  his  abode  as  often  as  he  may  desire,  pro- 
viding he  meets  those  obligations  which  such  a 
change  may  rightfully  impose.  Upon  his  free- 
dom of  choice  depends  his  happiness,  and  if  he 
stay,  let  it  be  long  or  short,  as  he  is  prompted. 
Private  ownership  is  the  one  under  which  we  now 
live  and  it  is  the  one  under  which  we  can  best 
continue,  for  it  means  nothing  more  than  perma- 
nency, security,  and  those  ideas  of  kinship  which 
it  would  be  unwise  and  intolerable  to  supplant. 
That  upon  Private  ownership  there  he  imposed 
the  task  of  rightful  usage  is  the  chief  concern  of 
society. 


24 


V 


RIGHTFUL  USAGE 


But  how  are  we  to  impose  the  task  of  rightful 
usage?  And  is  it  not  so  that  usage  is  indeter- 
minate and  uncertain,  dependable  upon  many 
things  such  as  scientific  discovery,  increased  pop- 
ulation, increasing  needs,  who  is  to  be  the  arbiter 
of  all  this  and  what  automatic  power  can  make  it 
so  ? The  answer  is,  the  State.  But  can  the  State 
enact  a law  stable  and  certain,  under  which  a 
man  can  live  with  a feeling  of  security,  and  at 
the  same  time  meet  a condition  of  society  that  is 
ever  changing,  a standard  that  is  always  rising? 
Can  it  act  without  being  unpleasantly  dictatorial 
and  foolishly  inquisitive?  In  its  actions  can  it 
prompt  regard  and  give  rise  to  a patriotic  desire 
to  meet  demands  rather  than  evade?  Can  it  do 
this  and  yet  maintain  an  individual  rather  than  a 
social  right?  We  shall  see. 


25 


PATERNALISM 


If  the  law  would  penalize  indolence  and  reward 
activity,  if  the  State  took  cognizance  that  the  in- 
dividual was  a social  trustee,  and  expected  from 
him  a rightful  accounting  for  his  stewardship, 
there  would  enter  some  justice  into  our  govern- 
mental relationship,  some  respect  for  it  as  an  in- 
stitution, but  where  it  chastises  the  progressive 
and  heaps  an  ever-increasing  burden  on  the  pro- 
ductive faculty,  it  encourages  no  virtue,  but 
arouses  distrust  seeking  the  first  opportunity  to 
evade. 

The  individual  is  never  called  into  question  by 
the  state  as  to  his  stewardship.  That  rightful 
usage  which  is  the  first  concern  of  Society  is  not 
enforced.  The  individual  never  meets  the  state 
on  a moral  plane,  it  is  always  and  invariably  the 
economic,  and  being  the  economic,  it  is  mistaken. 
On  the  creative,  the  productive  part  of  its  sub- 
jects, it  acts  like  a slave  driver,  rather  than  a sen- 
sible man.  Imposing  ever-increasing  burdens,  as 
the  subject  shows  evidence  of  endurance,  until  at 
last,  the  backbone  of  society  is  broken.  The  good 

26 


PATERNALISM 


are  all  broken  down  or  killed  off,  and  the  indolent 
are  more  indolent  than  ever. 

But  wherein  is  this  indolence  to  be  penalized, 
and  in  what  manner  is  thrift  to  be  rewarded? 
How  can  the  system  be  individual  and  at  the 
same  time  not  involve  impossible  specializations. 
Rightful  stewardship  is  the  chief  concern  of  So- 
ciety. It  is  here  the  government  meets  the  in- 
dividual and  passes  judgment.  It  is  here  that 
indolence  can  be  penalized  and  thrift  rewarded, 
and  it  can  be  done  simply,  uniformly,  justly  in 
the  application  of  the  taxing  power  under  a gen- 
eral law. 


r 


POWER  OF  TAXATION 


In  the  face  of  the  system  of  taxation  we  now 
have,  we  find  it  difficult  for  that  which  is  civiliza- 
tion to  maintain  itself.  There  is  a conspiracy 
against  it  ever  within. 

Taxation  is  the  first  incident  to  sovereignty. 
It  is  the  chief  arm  of  the  state  to  enforce  Black- 
stones,  conception  of  the  law  which  would  com- 
mand that  which  is  right  and  prohibit  that  which 
is  wrong.  Without  taxation  a state  is  powerless 
to  carry  out  its  decrees  or  maintain  its  organiza- 
tion. The  strength  of  the  governmental  idea  is 
dependent  upon  the  nature  and  manner  of  the 
taxing  power.  Taxation  is  the  first  concern  of 
Society  in  its  Governmental  Relationship.  It  is 
the  question  that  must  be  first  solved  and  rightly 
before  the  state  can  undertake  the  task  for  which 
it  was  created.  It  is  the  basis  of  all  right  social 
dealing  and  relationship,  and  if  injustice  creeps 
into  society,  it  is  most  likely  through  an  abuse  of 
this  taxing  power.  The  main  purpose  of  the 
state,  to  maintain  justice,  is  often  jeopardized  by 
its  own  autocratic  misdemeanor.  A just  system 
of  taxation  is  the  first  requisite  of  a just  sov- 

28 


POWER  OF  TAXATION 


ereignty,  and  a strong  system  of  a strong  state. 

It  is  a moral  question  of  the  highest  importance 
and  its  economy  is  inseparate  from  a moral  ideal- 
ism. It  knows  no  such  thing  as  expediency.  It  ; 
expects  no  such  thing  as  sacrifice.  It  involves  in 
its  application  the  highest  social  feelings  and 
the  keenest  appreciation  of  duty,  as  a rod  of 
chastisement  ever  ready  to  punish  and  restrain, 
but  never  to  arouse  the  slightest  fear  in  him  who 
pursues  the  tenor  of  an  honest  way.  An  ex- 
change between  society  and  the  individual,  its 
continuance  is  based  unequivocably  upon  a strata 
of  honorable  dealing.  Taxation  then  is  not  an 
economic  idea,  but  fundamentally  a social  rela- 
tionship, and  one  that  requires  thoughtful  study 
and  a deed  regard  for  individual  rights  and  privi- 
leges. 


29 


PEINCIPLES  OF  ADAM  SMITH. 


The  four  principles  or  canons  of  Taxation  as 
laid  down  by  Adam  Smith  in  his  Wealth  of  Na- 
tions have  met  with  some  acceptance,  not  because 
they  represent  any  unusual  economic  idea,  but 
because  they  are  in  most  part  social  truths  and 
cannot  well  be  denied.  But  the  application  of 
these  principles  to  the  system  of  taxation  as  in- 
stituted has  in  the  main  been  rather  limited: 

(1)  The  subjects  of  every  state  ought  to  con- 
tribute towards  the  support  of  the  Government 
as  near  as  possible  in  proportion  to  their  re- 
spective abilities;  that  is,  in  proportion  to  the 
revenue  they  enjoy  under  the  protection  of  the 
state. 

(2)  The  tax  which  every  individual  is  bound 
to  pay  ought  to  be  certain  and  not  arbitrary. 

(3)  Every  tax  ought  to  be  levied  at  the  time 
and  in  the  manner  in  which  it  is  most  likely  to  be 
convenient  for  the  contributor  to  pay  it. 

(4)  Every  tax  ought  to  be  contrived  so  as 
both  to  take  out  and  keep  out  of  the  pockets  of 
the  people  as  little  as  possible  over  and  above 

30 


PRINCIPLES  OF  ADAM  SMITH 


what  it  brings  into  the  public  treasury  of  the 
state. 

These  maxims  are  insufficient  in  that  they  give 
no  general  idea  of  a possible  system,  but  they 
are  worth  using  to  test  the  desirability  of  those 
systems  which  are  in  force,  and  it  will  be  found 
that  none  of  those  in  force  meet  the  requirements 
of  these  principles. 

It  is  not  maxims  of  taxation,  however,  which 
the  people  want,  but  a system  that  can  be  de- 
fended in  the  face  of  criticism.  When  such  a sys- 
tem is  presented  the  need  of  maxims  is  done  away 
in  the  clear,  moral  righteousness  of  the  system 
itself. 


31 


A VIOLATION  OF  RULES  1,  2,  3,  4 

The  imposition  of  an  indirect  tax  is  but  the  be- 
ginning of  a series  of  injustices.  It  has  its  foun- 
dation, in  distrust  and  its  continuance  is  sys- 
tematized deceit.  This  system  of  taxation,  which 
would  pick  a man’s  pocket  without  his  knowing 
it,  is  conducive  in  itself  to  that  very  method  of 
retaliation.  It  is  a tax  not  only  on  patience,  but 
on  virtue,  and  brings  unto  the  coffers  of  the  state, 
the  smallest  proportion  to  the  cost  of  its  imposi- 
tion. It  is  an  unprofitable  business.  When  the 
state  acts  toward  its  subjects  as  though  they 
were  unperceptive  creatures,  and  trusts  for  its 
popularity  on  their  ignorance  and  dup-ableness, 
it  is  high  time  to  question  its  morality  and  doubt 
the  truth  of  its  economy.  The  state  must  at  all 
times  act  free  and  openly,  must  take  its  citizens 
into  its  confidence  or  it  can  beget  little  in  return. 


32 


PROTECTIVE  TARIFF 


s 

A protective  idea  is  a type  of  special  legisla- 
tion, a narrow  sectionalism,  giving  rise  to  in- 
ternal differences  unjustifiable  and  unnecessary. 

Nationalism  is  Internationalism,  peace,  har- 
mony and  Christian,  but  Sectionalism  means  do- 
mestic uncertainty,  unrest  and  foreign  dissension. 

Protection  is  the  outgrowth  of  Capitalism.  It 
is  an  idea  that  has  no  basis  of  fact,  and  is  encour- 
aged by  a superficial  conception  of  social  econ- 
omy. Its  application  brings  into  practice  the 
evasive,  the  dishonest  and  the  disagreeable.  It 
is  impractical  and  uncertain.  A temptation  from 
its  inception  to  its  enforcement.  An  appropria- 
tion in  the  nature  of  robbery  with  governmental 
sanction.  It  is  expensive,  elusive  and  disgusting, 
it  has  no  moral  side,  but  a ridiculous  impecuni- 
osity. 


33 


PERSONAL  TAX 


Personal  property  is  fundamentally  and  truth- 
fully the  nearest  approach  to  property  right. 
The  right  to  property  in  land  is  more  or  less  a 
communal  right,  because  it  represents  no  per- 
sonal expenditure  of  labor,  and  the  state  should 
and  must  have  authority  as  to  its  disposition,  its 
development  and  its  usage,  in  order  to  maintain 
the  fundamental  purpose  of  its  existence,  but  that 
branch  of  property  which  is  brought  into  exist- 
ence through  the  expenditure  of  labor  alone,  and 
commonly  called  personal  property,  is  rightfully 
personal,  and  the  authority  of  the  state  should 
be  on  the  side  of  its  prctection,  its  encourage- 
ment and  a freedom  of  all  the  prerogatives  which 
the  individual  may  choose  to  exercise  in  regard 
to  it.  Any  interference  is  a usurpation  of  social 
authority  over  individual  right  and  privilege.  It 
is  an  exploitation  by  society  of  the  individual.  An 
unnecessary  and  uncalled  for  interference  on  the 
part  of  the  state  in  matters  in  which  it  rightfully 
has  no  concern.  An  intermeddling,  which  is 
baneful,  in  that  it  is  a tax  on  thrift  and  energy, 
to  maintain  indolence  and  indifferent  application. 


PERSONAL  TAX 


Individualism,  freedom,  liberty,  the  highest  and 
impelling  motives  in  human  nature  revolt  at  such 
interference.  A continual  division,  a communism 
of  all  production,  socialism  with  the  dictatorial 
prerogatives  of  a tyrannical  majority  are  not,  but 
in  line  with  the  maintenance  of  such  an  absurd 
and  basically  unjust  policy.  Let  the  government 
tax  the  opportunity  it  gives,  and  not  the  fruits 
of  its  exercise.  Why  should  the  man  who  creates 
pay  the  taxes  of  a man  who  does  nothing  with 
an  equal  or  greater  opportunity  in  which  he 
is  protected  f Why  should  thrift,  and  a desire  to 
be  presentable,  be  taxed  and  burdened,  while 
sloth  and  carelessness  escape  the  censure  of  no- 
tice? Why  should  a man  labor  to  build  a borne, 
fill  it  with  furnishings  pleasing  to  the  eye,  and 
comforting  to  the  body,  and  be  burdened  with 
tax  that  indolence  may  be  less  burdened  and  more 
encouraged.  Two  men  own  adjacent  tracts  of 
ground  of  sanle  size  and  value.  A improves  his 
and  makes  use  of  it,  he  is  of  service  to  himself 
and  the  community.  B makes  no  use  of  his,  but 
holds  it  as  a speculation.  The  more  A pays  the 
less  B pays.  Wherein  is  this  a symposium  of 
justice  ? Truly  from  the  states  standpoint,  a man 
is  better  off  if  he  does  nothing,  or  has  the  tools 

35 


ELYS  I A 


and  implements  of  savagery,  rather  than  civiliza- 
tion. Every  time  the  state  steps  into  a man’s 
home,  instead  of  encouragement  and  commenda- 
tion, it  leaves  behind  its  censure.  My  home  is 
my  castle.  The  state  should  so  regard  it,  and 
has  no  more  right  therein  than  an  individual 
without  my  asking,  and  if  he  cannot  come  with 
commendation  for  my  efforts  I care  not  to  have 
him,  and  if  law  is  but  an  inexcusable  and  unwar- 
ranted censure  and  interference  on  the  part  of 
many,  it  has  no  friendship  for  me  nor  I for  it. 

A tax  on  personalty  is  naught  at  its  best,  but  a 
gradual  social  absorption  of  individual  effort. 
At  times  it  is  not  gradual  but  swift,  despotic  and 
uncompromising.  An  inconsiderate  and  unjust 
appropriation. 


36 


JOHN  DOE  AND  RICHARD  ROE. 

John  Doe  under  our  present  system  owns  sev- 
eral hundred,  perhaps  several  thousand  acres  of 
land,  far  more  than  his  natural  need,  far  more 
than  he  can  personally  cultivate.  He  is  protected 
by  law  in  this  ownership,  he  can  do  as  he  pleases 
with  it.  There  is  only  one  condition  imposed  and 
that  is  he  pay  a tax.  This  tax  being  direct  is 
never  national,  if  it  is  outside  of  corporate  limits 
it  is  never  municipal.  It  remains  to  be  merely 
county,  township  and  state,  and  as  a result  is  in- 
considerate and  small.  If  a municipal  tax  were 
imposed  he  would  never  cease  his  complaint, 
could  not  understand  its  justice,  yet  he  lives  in 
the  very  center  of  our  civilization,  enjoys  all  of 
its  advantages,  sells  in  the  city  markets  and  is 
unquestionably  a citizen,  not  only  of  his  locality, 
but  first  and  fundamentally  of  the  nation,  which 
must  be  localized  in  order  to  have  practicalness 
and  centralization.  Because  this  burden  of  civili- 
zations maintenance  is  cast  from  him  onto  the 
shoulders  of  the  city  dweller,  he  has  little  concern 
for  any  question  outside  of  his  own  immediate 
vicinity,  and  that  this  separation  be  continued 

37 


ELYSIA 


as  long  as  possible  is  liis  chief  concern.  His 
stewardship  is  great,  but  his  accounting  is  small, 
and  about  all  he  knows  is  that  the  people  are  keep- 
ing up  a very  expensive  organization  of  which  he 
gets  the  chief  and  greatest  benefit,  of  which  he  is 
almost  entirely  independent,  but  in  which  they 
are  entirely  dependent.  He  is  independent  and 
because  he  is  so,  is  rich. 

Richard  Roe  buys  a city  lot  of  John  Doe,  who, 
when  the  city  came  up  to  his  land,  had  a part  of 
it  annexed  to  the  city  that  he  might  obtain  its 
advantages  and  subdivided.  Roe  buys  the  lot  on 
the  installment  plan,  and  after  considerable  sav- 
ing and  economy  gets  it  paid  for.  He  then  pro- 
ceeds to  build  his  house,  following  out  a laudable 
and  commendable  undertaking,  prompted  by  nat- 
ural need.  To  do  this  he  must  borrow  consider- 
able money,  and  now  how  the  law  does  smite  him. 
As  long  as  John  Doe  had  it  he  paid  about  50c  an 
acre  tax,  or  perhaps  15c  on  that  vacant  lot,  but 
the  next  year  under  Richard  Roe’s  ownership 
the  tax  rises  to  $40  or  $50  on  the  same  piece  of 
ground.  John  Doe  has  done  nothing  but  exploit, 
Richard  Roe  has  done  something  and  is  exploited. 
Richard  pays  a tax  on  enterprise,  and  a tax  on 
enterprise  is  a robbery  of  virtue.  But  the  tax 

38 


JOHN  DOE  AND  RICHARD  ROE. 


Richard  Roe  pays  is  on  all  the  property  and  he 
rightfully  and  in  truth  only  owns  the  lot,  the  bal- 
ance represented  by  a mortgage  is  owned  by 
someone  else.  Say  the  mortgage  is  $3,000.  Now 
when  the  mortgagee  loans  his  money  he  makes 
the  interest  rate  high  enough  so  he  can  pay  a tax 
on  it,  and  Richard,  instead  of  being  able  to  bor- 
row at  5 per  cent,  pays  6 or  7,  possibly  8 per  cent. 
Poor  Richard,  he  now  pays  taxes  on  $7,000  worth 
of  property  and  only  has  $500  worth,  and  that  he 
paid  a big  price  for.  But  Roe’s  tax  does  not 
end  here.  He  pays  a tax  on  his  household  goods. 
The  neater,  more  tasty  and  artistic  his  tastes,  the 
higher  his  tax,  and  then  when  he  clothes  and 
feeds  himself,  in  steps  the  Government  taking  the 
very  food  out  of  his  mouth  and  the  clothes  off 
from  his  back,  and  these  taxes  are  all  on  necessi- 
ties. Truly  the  Government  does  not  tax  him  in 
proportion  to  the  protection  it  bestows,  or  on  the 
property  right  defended,  but  on  the  thrift  he 
shows  even  in  the  face  of  obstacles  and  the  more 
he  acts  like  a civilized  man.  Now  if  this  $70  or 
$80  tax,  Roe’s  contribution  to  the  Government, 
or  more  properly  $150  which  more  nearly  repre- 
sents his  contribution,  were  levied  right  in  the 
first  place,  and  the  burden  of  increased  taxation 

39 


ELYSIA 


was  kept  upon  the  land,  rather  than  placed  upon 
the  necessities  of  life,  land  values  would  not  in- 
crease as  they  do,  and  land  exploitation  would  be 
far  from  as  attractive  a pursuit.  Wealth,  instead 
of  pouring  into  the  laps  of  individuals  would 
pour  into  the  coffers  of  the  state  as  taxes.  John 
Doe  could  not  long  hold  his  lots  at  a high  price  in 
the  face  of  a tax  like  that,  nor  could  he  afford  to 
allow  his  land  to  escape  the  highest  possible  cul- 
tivation. If  he  did  not  do  the  right  thing  by  so- 
ciety, the  government  supplants  his  stewardship 
with  that  of  a man  who  will. 

So,  instead  of  penalizing  labor  by  robbing  a 
man  of  its  fruits  and  handicapping  him  at  the 
outset,  we  should  encourage  him  and  this  means 
the  removal  of  all  tax  on  labor,  or  its  products, 
the  tax  resting  where  it  originally  lay,  on  the 
basic  opportunity,  on  land  alone. 

A man  never  improves  a tract  of  ground  hut 
that  his  neighbors  are  an  interested  party.  He 
never  labors  but  that  it  is  of  social  advantage. 
His  thrift  and  industry  have  their  social  lesson. 
His  productiveness  can  result  neither  directly 
nor  indirectly  in  aught  but  social  betterment. 
Now  this  faculty  is  one  that  society  commends, 
and  the  state  should  encourage,  and  instead  of 

40 


JOHN  DOE  AND  RICHARD  ROE. 


41 


increasing  liis  tax  as  he  created  the  state  should 
lower  it  and  the  punishment  of  a high  tax  would 
fall  all  the  more  heavily  on  that  which  was  unde- 
veloped and  uncultivated,  and  the  unimproved  be 
within  closer  reach  of  the  state  and  consequently 
a better  stewardship. 

But  the  State  can  never  be  too  watchful  of  the 
Liberty  of  its  citizens.  By  the  time  a man’s  fac- 
ulties are  extended  over  a square  mile  or  so  of 
territory,  in  the  present  populated  condition,  even 
if  not  in  the  hunting  stage  of  society,  he  has 
plenty  of  freedom  to  live  and  develop  and  exert 
himself  to  the  full  limit  of  all  his  powers.  A 
proper  guardianship  necessitates  therefore  some 
limitation,  and  this  can  be  effected  by  adding  the 
element  of  progression.  So,  if  the  tax  would  be 
lower  as  he  improves,  let  it  increase  as  he  concen- 
trates, for  the  whole  effort  should  be  to  bring 
about  the  highest  possible  development,  that 
values  shall  not  go  into  the  land,  but  upon  the 
land,  and  a man  could  not  extend  his  stewardship 
were  it  not  attended  by  a high  development  of  his 
properties  and  a management  exceptionally  pro- 
ductive and  business-like,  requiring  close  per- 
sonal attention  and  application,  the  antithesis 
of  the  absentism  of  our  present  system. 

41 


ELYSIA 


The  world  is  a heritage  to  man,  with  a steward- 
ship ever  changing,  a responsibility  ever  increas- 
ing, a division  that  must  be  ever  continuing.  A 
law  that  would  make  the  ultimate  the  finest  and 
the  finished.  Civilization  is  the  practice  of  this 
law,  Christianity  is  its  perfection.  Ye  cannot 
tell  one  from  the  other.  Government  is  a success 
or  failure  as  it  seeks  its  enforcement.  Taxation 
is  just  or  unjust  as  it  approaches  it  in  its  appli- 
cation. 


42 


A PROGRESSIVE,  GRADUATED  LAND  TAX 

First.  It  would  make  land  as  a speculative  in- 
vestment far  less  desirable,  for  the  state  would 
be  appropriating  to  itself  yearly  as  taxes,  a great 
part  of  the  unearned  increment,  that  is,  of  its  ad- 
vance in  value  irrespective  of  any  improved  con- 
dition. 

Second.  It  would  effect  a continual  division  of 
land  as  a result  of  the  increased  taxation  on  an 
increased  value,  following  natural  demands, 
which  would  bring  into  operation  a more  intense 
system  of  cultivation,  to  meet  the  increased  need. 
This  division  would  not  be  autocratic,  but  so  grad- 
ual and  unperceptive  as  to  cause  no  disturbance 
of  property  right  nor  tenancy. 

Third.  It  would  limit  a man’s  holdings  to  that 
which  he  improved,  and  every  continuance  of  ac- 
quisition would  require  a little  better  improve- 
ment than  that  which  preceded,  rather  than  less 
as  is  now  the  case.  But  it  puts  no  arbitrary 
limitation  on  his  opportunities  nor  any  unjust  re- 
striction on  his  stewardship.  It  is  not  dictatorial 
nor  personal. 

Fourth.  It  would  encourage  a development  and 

43 


ELYSIA 


improvement  far  ahead  of  the  present,  and  by 
lowering  the  tax  on  the  first  acquisition  when  im- 
proved would  insure  him  (1)  a Greater  perma- 
nency of  this  tenancy  and  a greater  independence. 
(2)  The  improvements  in  themselves  adding  to 
the  productivity  would  be  to  the  advantage  of 
the  State  and  still  farther  strengthen  his  posses- 
sion, so  in  a highly  improved  property  a man 
would  not  only  be  as  safe,  hut  safer  in  his  pos- 
session than  he  is  now ; but  in  a poorly  improved 
piece  his  tenancy  would  be  more  precarious,  his 
stewardship  more  questioned,  and  he  would  not 
progress  in  his  ownership  except  as  he  was  satis- 
fied he  could  meet  the  requirements  and  exactions 
of  the  state.  Consequently  he  cannot  simply  own, 
he  must  make  use  of  his  ownership  and  improve 
it,  or  his  right  is  in  jeopardy  and  he  cannot  ex- 
tend, but  that  he  must  meet  a greater  require- 
ment. If  the  state  expects  something  from  the 
landholder  it  will  get  something,  otherwise  it  will 
not. 

Fifth.  By  lowering  land  values  it  would  un- 
questionably draw  population  back  to  the  land 
and  from  the  cities  into  the  rural  districts.  This 
is  a necessity  if  our  civilization  is  to  be  anything 

44 


A PROGRESSIVE,  GRADUATED  LAND  TAX 


but  a congested,  dissatisfied,  disgruntled  mass 
with  a livelihood  both  precarious  and  uncertain. 

The  idea  that  people  live  in  town,  and  the  coun- 
try is  deserted  because  of  a natural  desire  to  cen- 
tralize, and  because  of  the  fascination  of  city  life, 
is  untrue.  That  it  is  more  natural  for  the  human 
race  to  live  in  crowded  tenements  and  in  conges- 
tion than  to  live  in  the  free  and  open  is  an  unwar- 
ranted and  ignorant  condemnation  of  human  na- 
ture. It  is  not  so.  But  it  is  not  natural  to  expect 
them  to  live  miles  apart,  when  the  population 
would  have  them  closer  together.  It  is  not  nat- 
ural to  expect  them  to  live  in  dilapidated  houses, 
look  at  dilapidated  barns,  see  hen  houses  and  pig 
pens  without  any  attempt  at  beautification.  If 
the  country  was  more  populous,  as  the  greatness 
of  our  population  and  our  city  congestion  proves 
it  should  be;  if  it  was  improved  and  beautified 
and  not  left  a mass  of  black  loam,  as  unattractive 
as  a desert ; if  roads  and  fences,  houses,  barns 
were  built  after  some  idealized  conception  that 
follows  ownership  rather  than  tenancy;  if  li- 
braries, schools,  churches  were  not  supported  by 
an  absentee  landlord,  but  by  a permanent  and  in- 
terested occupant;  if  country  life  was  the  life 
of  home  and  friends  it  would  take  on  a far  differ- 


45 


ELYSIA 


ent  aspect,  would  be  far  more  attractive.  The 
city  is  overdone  and  the  country  is  underdone.  A 
building  a quarter  of  a mile  high  is  not  near  as 
sane  as  one  a quarter  of  a mile  long.  If  on  every 
40-acre  tract  valued  at  $10,000  there  was  $10,000 
worth  of  improvements,  what  a different  aspect 
our  rural  communities  would  take.  But  values 
are  going  into  the  land,  when  they  should  go  on 
the  land.  The  passion  is  for  land,  rather  than  its 
improvement.  And  why  is  it?  Because  we  tax 
the  improvement  rather  than  the  land,  and  the 
tax  on  improvement  is  ever  increasing,  and  on 
land  ever  decreasing,  and  there  is  no  limitation 
or  restriction  on  ownership.  The  original  source 
of  all  productivity  is  the  rural  district,  and  it 
must  increase  in  population  or  society  will  die  of 
congestion.  The  country  not  only  feeds  the  city, 
but  it  feeds  its  mills  and  factories,  and  if  the  sup- 
ply is  not  of  the  kind  and  great  enough  for  these, 
they  shut  down  in  idleness.  Country  life  is  a sign 
of  a nation’s  living.  It  is  a standard  of  civiliza- 
tion. It  is  not  the  enormous  architectural  and 
engineering  triumphs,  but  its  domesticity. 

Sixth.  It  would  give  our  civilization  and  our 
population  a greater  permanency.  Possession 
now  in  the  face  of  such  high  taxes,  high  prices 

46 


A PROGRESSIVE,  GRADUATED  LAND  TAX 


and  high  interest  rate  is  to  the  debtor,  and  the 
man  who  improves,  rather  precarious  and  uncer- 
tain. There  is  little  permanency  of  occupation 
or  location  in  our  civilization.  A great  mass  of 
our  population  is  on  the  move.  This  is  not  a con- 
dition to  be  desired.  It  is  restless,  immoral,  un- 
productive. There  is  a lack  of  skill  in  those  em- 
ployed because  of  the  uncertainty  of  steady  em- 
ployment. Men  are  becoming  more  and  more  fol- 
lowers of  all  trades  and  masters  of  none.  This 
unrest  and  dissatisfaction  always  follows  the 
growth  of  landlordism  and  under  it  any  country 
will  go  to  ruin.  The  Landlord  exploits  the  tenant 
and  the  tenant  abuses  his  possession,  and  we  have 
in  time  famine,  for  we  have  not  reckoned  with  the 
transcendent  law  of  nature. 

Seventh.  A tax  on  land  alone  is  more  reliable, 
more  easily  assessed  and  collected,  more  con- 
ducive to  honesty,  besides  its  conformity  to 
higher  standards  of  justice.  It  cannot  be  shifted 
without  effort,  an  effort  which  is  the  mainspring 
of  society,  and  that  which  is  shifted,  if  it  be  so,  is 
more  equitably  diffused  and  easily  borne.  It  acts 
as  an  incentive  to  the  highest  and  most  intense 
development,  for  profit  is  a balance  not  before, 
but  after,  an  original  application.  And  the 

47 


ELYSIA 


greater  the  original  application  the  greater  the 
impetus  given  in  keeping  society  in  motion,  and 
the  greater  must  be  the  original  application  with 
the  greater  social  need  and  increased  tax. 


48 


UNEVENNESS  AND  LACK  OF  SYMMETRY 
IN  OUR  CITY  DEVELOPMENT 

One  of  the  strongest  and  most  prominent  char- 
acteristics of  our  municipalities  is  the  lack  of 
symmetry  in  their  development.  Irregularity 
and  non-conformity  are  everywhere  in  evidence. 
Improvement  is  side  by  side  with  dilapidation 
and  neglect.  Beauty,  a general  scheme  of  archi- 
tecture, a harmonious  blending  of  ideas,  is  en- 
tirely lacking.  Skyscrapers,  hundreds  of  feet 
high,  rise  adjacent  to  poorly  built  and  practically 
unkept  properties.  The  extremes  meet  side  by 
side.  A $10,000,000  building  is  next  to  a $10,000 
one.  The  $10,000,000  has  been  spent  on  an  area 
that  should  have  been  several  times  as  great,  but 
high  land  value  prevented  it,  and  the  more  taxes 
improvements  pay  the  less  land  has  to  bear,  the 
higher  its  value  and  the  more  difficult  is  such  ex- 
tension. Our  system  of  taxing  in  the  air  is  con- 
ducive to  air  construction.  It  is  an  air  tax.  If 
we  kept  the  tax  a little  closer  to  the  ground,  we 
would  have  less  building  of  air  castles  and  more 
extended  development.  This  skyscraping  busi- 
ness is  an  eyesore.  It  is  a waste  in  time,  ma- 

49 


ELYS  I A 


terial,  labor  and  human  life.  If  the  entire  busi- 
ness district  of  New  York  had  nothing  on  it  less 
than  40  stories  high,  what  waste  and  foolishness 
it  would  represent.  But  40  stories  is  a paying 
investment ; after  a time  it  will  be  either  a hole  in 
the  ground  or  60  stories,  sometime  80  stories 
and  so  on.  What  genius  to  exist  side  by  side  with 
such  foolishness.  Now,  if  half  the  tax  on  the 
$10,000,000  building  was  shifted  onto  the  adjacent 
property,  the  improvements  would  run  much 
more  even.  The  skyline  would  be  more  on  a level, 
the  development  more  harmonious,  of  greater 
beauty,  safety  and  permanency.  Genius  cannot 
be  ever  getting  us  out  of  such  conditions;  there 
is  a limit  to  sane  and  sound  construction.  En- 
gineering skill  can  be  overtaxed  and  uselessly 
overworked. 


50 


THE  POSSIBILITIES  OF  REVENUE. 


The  possibilities  arising  out  of  a correct  sys- 
tem of  taxation  are  greater  than  have  been 
enumerated.  “The  power  to  tax,”  said  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  “involves  the  power  to  de- 
stroy.” How  slow  the  people  are  to  grasp  the 
opportunities  of  its  exercise.  Preservation  and 
creation  are,  however,  the  ultimate  end  of  the  law 
and  the  legal  exercise  of  all  taxing  power. 

Taxation  means  power  and  as  the  state  has  this 
power  and  rightfully  exercises  it,  it  brings  within 
the  province  and  possibility  of  government, 
whether  National,  State  or  Municipal,  undertak- 
ings that  were  before  regarded  as  private  in  their 
development,  though  public  in  character.  I refer 
to  those  things  now  done  by  public  service  cor- 
porations, as  lighting,  heating,  telephone  and 
street  railway  systems  and  interurban  lines. 
These  things  being  so  universally  public  are  gov- 
ernmental in  their  nature,  as  in  our  educational 
and  postal  system.  But  these  functions  are  not 
numerous;  they  are  important,  and  upon  their 
correct  exercise  depends  much  of  social  comfort 
and  communication,  but  the  universality  of  a few 

51 


ELYSIA 


of  our  social  needs  does  not  necessitate  a sociali- 
zation of  the  whole.  It  is  only  in  those  lines 
where  competition  is  wasteful  or  extravagant,  or 
those  monopolistic,  that  we  need  governmental 
initiative  and  support.  Every  field  of  endeavor 
should  be  left  to  the  individual  that  can  remain 
free  and  open,  without  being  destructive  or 
monopolistic.  Now  the  basis  of  monopoly  in  our 
great  railway  systems  is  the  highway  over  which 
the  traffic  is  carried,  and  whenever  it  is  possible 
to  leave  this  traffic  to  individual  enterprise,  it 
would  be  well  to  do  so.  The  State  building  and 
maintaining  the  highways  at  its  own  expense, 
and  keeping  always  open  the  opportunity  for  pri- 
vate initiative.  Our  highway  system  is  now  in- 
complete and  insufficient.  It  is  not  near  what  it 
should  be  or  could  be  made  to  be  if  it  had  back  of 
it  the  state,  as  compared  to  the  centralized  wealth 
of  individuals.  Fine  terminals  and  stations 
would  take  the  place  of  the  congested  and  inade- 
quate facilities  of  our  present  day.  The  question 
not  of  dividends  but  civic  pride  and  social  con- 
venience would  always  be  uppermost  in  the  minds 
of  our  citizens.  There  would  be  less  waste, 
greater  uniformity  and  systematization.  A build- 
ing with  some  regard  to  permanency  and  safety. 

52 


THE  POSSIBILITIES  OF  REVENUE 


Think  of  an  eight-track  system  from  New  York 
to  San  Francisco  and  Chicago  to  New  Orleans 
with  ramifications  adequate  and  substantial.  A 
highway  for  every  manner  of  conveyance  and 
every  speed  of  travel.  Such  a thing  is  not  within 
the  reach  of  Corporate  law.  It  is  too  gigantic, 
too  idealistic,  but  it  is  within  the  reach  of  our 
National  government.  It  is  one  of  those  things 
that  gives  to  civilization  the  majesty  of  enduring 
achievement,  that  inspires  posterity  to  effort,  that 
is  evidence  of  a concerted  social  movement. 

The  tendency  of  monopoly  by  shutting  off  in- 
dividual enterprise  is  to  cause  a scarcity,  and  our 
present  accommodations  are  far  behind  the  times, 
but  you  allow  individual  enterprise  always  its 
opportunity  and  it  will  furnish  a supply  equiva- 
lent in  extent  and  character  with  the  demand,  and 
the  power  of  originality  will  always  be  in  evi- 
dence. The  great  waste  in  our  system  of  corpo- 
rate privilege,  where  ten  or  fifteen  trains  a day 
are  run  over  a couple  of  poor  unstable  tracks,  in- 
stead of  twenty  over  one  of  permanent  and  proud 
construction,  shows  that  corporate  law  cannot  in 
such  undertakings  take  the  place  of  social  effort. 
The  possibilities  of  competition  renders  all  such 
construction  cheap  and  haphazard.  Roads  are 

53 


54 


ELYSIA 


built  without  regard  to  social  need,  but  according 
to  a conception  limited  by  financial  means  and  the 
uncertainty  of  dividend-paying  power.  Such  en- 
terprise is  always  incomplete,  in  many  instances 
inefficient,  and  because  it  is  so  is  the  most  dear 
and  expensive.  It  lacks  the  fundamental  element 
of  personal  feeling.  There  is  not  back  of  it  the 
man,  but  the  dollar. 

The  Age  of  Capitalism  is  passing  away.  We 
are  in  the  dawn  of  a New  Era,  where  the  past  is 
inspiring  men  with  dreams  of  gigantic  efforts, 
with  thoughts  of  magnificent  achievements. 
Where  the  man  is  rising  great  and  mighty.  So- 
ciety is  laboring  and  uniting  in  a great  scheme 
of  universal  brotherhood.  Where  the  prophets 
of  a false  idealism  have  no  place,  but  the  great 
universal  law,  unseen  but  felt,  dwells  within  and 
moves  the  whole  human  race. 


54 


CAPITALIZATION 


The  obstacle  between  man  and  opportunity,  be- 
tween him  and  freedom,  the  bar  which  limits  his 
effort,  is  capitalization.  It  is  not  that  which  sets 
him  in  motion  as  is  generally  supposed,  but  on 
the  contrary  is  a chain  with  a heavy  ball.  Capi- 
tal in  the  sense  economically  used  is  naught  but 
the  mortgage  the  devil  holds  on  social  progress. 
For  a capitalistic  idea  I have  naught  but  pity, 
contempt  and  derision.  Those  who  would  for- 
mulate laws  of  wealth  are  blindly  superficial  and 
socially  ignorant.  Capital  knows  no  law  unless  it 
be  that  of  gravity,  and  an  attempt  to  spiritualize 
it  and  impart  intelligence,  life  and  movement  to 
it  is  but  ignorance  and  superstition  bowing 
down  and  consulting  a vain,  sensless  imagery. 
Man,  when  you  give  him  a place,  is  the  whole 
thing,  but  when  you  endeavor  to  make  a creature 
of  the  air  out  of  him  that  never  alights,  yon  under- 
take an  impossible  thing,  as  he  is  now  known  to 
be  physically  constituted,  and  when  you  endeavor 
to  describe  such  a creature’s  movements  in  the 
air,  you  undertake  a task  which  in  some  of  our 
great  writers  is  termed  genius,  but  is  naught  but 

55 


ELYSIA 


Imagination  run  wild,  and  because  of  this  known 
force  of  gravity  makes  it  difficult  for  even  genius 
to  satisfy  us  as  to  such  adaptation  and  give  a 
clear  and  definite  description  of  such  a creature 
and  his  movements.  Love,  not  capital,  is  the 
moving  power  of  the  world.  Now  you  capitalize 
man  when  you  capitalize  place,  and  you  capitalize 
place  when  you  remove  man  and  labor  from  their 
just  and  rightful  opportunity.  When  land  is 
readily  accessible,  labor  has  a first  and  rightful 
capitalistic  value,  that  is,  it  is  of  some  impor- 
tance, it  is  the  basis  of  some  credit,  but  if  it  is  in- 
accessible, labor  loses  its  dignity,  and  a dicta- 
torial and  selfish  whim  takes  precedence  over  all 
exertion.  Liberty  is  fundamentally  a question 
of  a country’s  land  system,  and  a correct  land 
system  depends  upon  a correct  application  of  the 
taxing  power. 


56 


GOVERNMENTAL  SOCIALISM 

The  Governing  power  should  never  be  too  far 
removed  from  the  people.  If  it  is  it  ceases  to  be 
of  the  people.  There  is  a limitation  that  is  not 
only  social,  but  geographical.  The  strength  of  all 
organization  depends  upon  the  personality  of 
which  it  is  composed,  and  the  interknowledge  of 
that  personality,  the  feeling  of  confidence  and 
friendship  engendered.  Now  the  strength  of  the 
governing  personalities  can  be  discerned  only 
after  intimate  fellowship  and  association,  and 
the  larger  the  body  the  more  impossible  such 
knowledge  becomes  and  the  greater  the  probabil- 
ity of  an  incapable  leadership.  This  leadership, 
where  it  is  always  subject  to  observation  and  cen- 
sorship is  more  apt,  and  of  necessity  must  be, 
not  only  more  democratic,  but  more  efficient  and 
patriotic;  but  the  larger  the  unit  becomes  the 
greater  is  the  opportunity  for  local  favoritisms, 
prejudices  and  differences  to  creep  in,  and  the 
more  likely  it  is  that  important  issues  be  unde- 
termined and  progressive  methods  be  hampered. 
The  most  efficient  organization,  the  most  progres- 
sive, the  most  enthusiastic  is  that  which  is  large 

57 


ELYSIA 


enough  to  perform  the  intended  task,  but  not  so 
large  that  it  lacks  the  feeling  of  strong  personal 
responsibility.  Large  units  are  not  only  un- 
wieldy, but  unprogressive,  and  the  fundamental 
reason  is  not  economic,  but  social. 

Society  is  primarily  individual  and  the  effort 
of  all  Governmental  activity  should  be  to  main- 
tain it  so.  When  society  acts  in  large  bodies  of 
men,  it  acts  autocratically,  often  mistakenly, 
slowly  and  with  far  less  intelligence  and  patriot- 
ism. The  success  of  all  undertakings,  no  matter 
how  great  they  are,  is  dependent  upon  an  indi- 
vidual spirituality,  individual  motive,  individual 
intelligence.  Now  the  essential  difficulty  with 
governmental  Socialism  is,  that  it  concerns  itself 
in  that  in  which  there  is  no  need.  The  strength 
of  this  governmental  idea  is  due  to  the  prevalence 
of  the  capitalistic  and  corporate  idea.  Capitalism 
seems  to  possess  such  power  that  the  Government 
appears  to  be  the  only  institution  capable  of  con- 
tending against  it.  Now  this  capitalistic  idea  is 
absolutely  nonsensical  and  idolatrous.  It  is  a 
fallacy  and  governmental  capitalism  is  just  as 
foolish  and  unnecessary  as  capitalism  itself.  So- 
cialism is  naught  but  Governmental  Capitalism. 
We  are  in  need  of  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 


58 


) 

GOVERNMENTAL  SOCIALISM 

It  is  individualization  we  want  to  get  back  to ; * 
such  is  democratic,  but  Governmental  Collectiv-  * 
ism  is  not  democratic,  but  autocratic.  A strife 
between  classes,  rather  than  competition  among 
the  masses,  the  dearth  of  individualism  and  its 
initiative,  a reactionary  and  thoughtless  expe- 
dient. 


59 


LAW 


The  Universe  is  ruled  by  one  great  Law.  It 
regulates  the  movements  of  the  stars.  It  perse- 
veres in  the  activities  of  men.  Because  of  it  all 
chaos  has  taken  form,  and  Infinity  moves  on  to- 
ward the  unknown.  Our  poor  imaginations  can- 
not grasp  its  scope,  nor  can  our  thought  pene- 
trate its  meaning,  but  within  us  an  inherent  be- 
lief in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  lifts  us  into 
the  hope,  the  confidence,  that  through  it  all  one 
great  purpose  runs,  and  Unity,  Harmony,  Love, 
is  Law,  is  God. 


60 


CORPORATE  LAW 

What  have  Corporations  done  for  us?  Noth- 
ing. 

What  have  they  done  us  for?  Everything. 

Our  present  civilization  requires  capitalization 
no  more  than  did  that  of  our  forefathers,  when 
life’s  needs  were  simple  as  were  its  tools. 

The  reason  why  the  laboring  man  has  not 
reaped  the  benefit  of  mechanical  advancement  is 
not  because  of  the  impracticality  of  invention,  or 
the  undesirability  of  improvement,  hut  because  he 
has  permitted  every  idea  invented  to  be  capitalized 
and  monopolized  from  its  origination  through  all 
periods  of  its  use. 

We  have  by  putting  capitalization  first  made 
socialization  difficult  to  achieve.  This  is  shown 
to  be  the  case  in  municipal  undertakings,  none  of 
which  but  would  have  come  sooner  had  not  capi- 
talization and  incorporation  stood  in  the  way. 
Government  construction  of  highways  would,  if 
it  had  preceded  that  of  corporate  initiative,  have 
been  far  more  swift,  substantial  and  satisfactory. 
As  it  is,  the  people  have  built  and  paid  many  times 
over  for  the  construction  of  the  roads  we  now 


61 


ELYSIA 


have.  This  construction  should  have  been  done 
by  the  government  and  operation  and  use  left  to 
the  people,  and  it  could  so  have  been  done  had  the 
government  been  originally  endowed  with  a cor- 
rect exercise  of  the  taxing  power,  but  it  was  so 
weak  it  could  not  raise  the  revenue,  and  so  short- 
sighted it  made  no  effort.  The  government  had 
neither  system  nor  business  in  its  management. 
The  statesman  or  politician  could  talk  patriotic- 
ally of  the  rights  of  the  people  and  turn  around 
and  exploit  them. 

Every  branch  of  industry  that  has  been  monop- 
olized by  corporate  law  could  have  and  would 
have  been  just  as  thoroughly  productive  and  ef- 
ficient had  it  been  left  to  operate  under  the  law 
of  partnership  where  it  originated.  The  partner- 
ship is  not  too  small  an  agreement  for  legitimate 
business,  but  it  is  not  satisfactory  as  a monopo- 
listic institution.  Nearly,  if  not  all,  of  our  great 
Corporations  started  out  as  partnerships  and 
could  have  remained  so,  as  far  as  the  needs  of  the 
people  were  concerned,  but  Corporate  law  af- 
forded not  only  a means  of  concentration  beyond 
legitimacy,  but  was  autocratic  and  permitted  an 
absenteeism  to  creep  in,  which  every  man  who 
had  built  up  a businessvand  wanted  to  hang  on  to 


CORPORATE  LAW 


it  beyond  liis  natural  time,  was  prone  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  and  regarded  as  necessary.  As  a 
result  we  have  fossilized  and  stagnated  our  in- 
dustrial advance,  rather  than  rendered  it  neces- 
sary and  possible  for  the  original  and  progres- 
sive ideas  to  be  the  predominant  and  powerful 
ones. 

Corporations  have  done  naught  for  us,  but  they 
have  done  us  considerable.  There  is  no  field  of 
productivity  so  large,  no  industry  that  requires 
in  its  operation  so  much  preparation  that  the  peo- 
ple by  social  organization  and  generous  personal 
contribution  cannot  insure  it  a successful  and 
prosperous  inception,  and  an  operation  demo- 
cratic and  progressive.  Our  law  of  mortgages 
insures  as  broad  and  as  liberal  a contribution  un- 
der a social  agreement  as  it  does  under  an  eco- 
nomic one. 

The  corporation  on  its  very  face  is  a relic  of 
Monarchy.  It  has  been  handed  down  to  us  from 
the  days  when  Kings  and  Queens  showed  signs 
of  their  approval  and  favoritism  in  the  grant  of 
monopoly  and  privilege. 


63 


COERUPTION  AND  CORPORATE  LAW 


Corruption  is  the  natural  sequence  of  Corpo- 
rate law,  for  Corporate  law  is  but  legal  recogni- 
tion of  a corrupt  idea.  We  have  corruption  for 
we  have  legalized  it,  and  that  which  we  have 
sown  that  shall  we  also  reap.  The  effect  of  a 
recognition  of  the  capitalistic  idea  in  the  law  of 
a state  is  demoralizing  to  an  incalculable  degree 
on  the  morals  and  equitable  conceptions  of  the 
people.  It  is  conducive  to  a get-rich-quick  ex- 
ploitationary idea,  so  fascinating  as  it  presents 
itself  in  the  guise  of  legal  encouragement  and  pro- 
tection, that  it  unconsciously  influences  the  great 
body  of  citizenship  toward  a dishonest,  unsym- 
pathetic and  thoughtless  conception  of  social  duty 
and  obligation. 

This  tendency  when  encouraged  becomes  in  the 
weak  and  more  unscrupulous  flagrant  dishonesty 
and  graft,  and  eventually  ^inexcusable  and  pre- 
meditated crime.  Incorporation  is  and  has  come 
to  be  recognized  not  only  as  a special  economic 
privilege,  but  as  a means  to  evade  acts  which,  if 
individually  performed,  would  be  criminal  in 
nature.  This  possibility  and  fact  of  evasion  has 
rendered  it  necessary  that  there  be  enacted  spe- 

64 


CORRUPTION  AND  CORPORATE  LAW 


cial  acts  of  punishment  that  will  eventually  reach 
back  again  behind  the  corporation  and  inquire 
into  individual  act  and  purpose,  and  restore  the 
personality  and  consequent  liability,  that  has  here- 
tofore been  evaded  by  the  original  incorporation. 
This  enactment  of  criminal  statutes,  especially 
affecting  the  officers  and  directorate  of  the  great 
corporations,  is  hut  the  first  knowledged  sign  of 
the  partiality,  favoritism  and  injustice  of  the 
corporate  idea. 

The  few  prosecutions  that  have  been  under- 
taken, and  the  convictions  that  have  been  made, 
are  but  evidence  of  the  difficulty  and  improbabil- 
ity of  hasty  and  equitable  punishment  when  a man 
is  permitted  to  take  advantage  of  the  many  ave- 
nues and  recesses  which  the  law  affords  him  as 
means  of  escape. 

But  incorporation  has  been  so  overdone  and  so 
extended  beyond  all  bounds  of  legitimate  excuse, 
and  capitalistic  accumulation  has  by  it  been  per- 
mitted to  become  so  great,  that  the  temptations 
of  and  incentive  to  avarice  are  greater  than  that 
of  political  power  and  far  more  subtle.  And  so 
we  find  the  corrupt  influence  of  the  corporation 
in  every  branch  of  our  political  and  governmental 
life,  and  a farther  enactment  of  statutes  against 

65 


ELYSIA 


campaign  contributions  and  for  forced  publicity. 
These  acts  are  but  a beginning  of  a recognition 
of  the  great  corporate  evil,  and  the  nonsense  of 
the  idea  that  ever  brought  them  into  existence 
will  become  more  and  more  apparent  as  the  in- 
justice and  incorrigability  of  licensed  privilege 
begins  to  dawn  upon  the  people.  The  eventual 
complete  repeal  of  corporate  law  is  the  only  solu- 
tion for  the  elimination  of  the  dangerous  and 
powerful  political  entities,  which  have  sprung  up 
within  the  state  to  combat  and  thwart  the  will  of 
a progressive  citizenship. 

The  courts  of  the  United  States  should  never 
endow  a soulless,  consciousless,  capitalistic,  dead, 
intangible  property  right  with  a fiction  that  would 
make  it  the  equal  of  a living  man.  It  is  the  doc- 
trine of  a superficial,  unprogressive,  narrow  and 
paganistic  philosophy.  A laughable,  yet  pathetic 
attempt  at  a perpetuity  no  statute  can  ever  estab- 
lish, but  rests  alone  in  the  operation  of  natural 
law,  recognized  and  obeyed.  Christianity  is  far 
above  such  teaching,  far  above  such  a conception. 
The  race  would  yet  move  on  without  corporate 
law.  It  came  into  existence  long  before  it  was 
ever  thought,  and  it  will  live  on  long  after  it  is 
dead. 


66 


GENIUS  AND  WASTE 

Our  present  civilization  is  the  most  wasteful  of 
historic  record.  It  is  wasteful  in  every  respect, 
in  material,  life,  labor,  mentality.  It  is  contin- 
ually creating  situations  requiring  a technical 
mentality,  which  in  turn  proves  to  be  a severe 
drain  on  natural  and  material  resources.  The 
mentality  running  as  it  does  into  specializations 
has  a tendency  to  narrow,  confine  and  in  a way 
weaken  the  mind  and  the  labor  expended  to  so 
approach  the  realm  of  brute  force  as  to  be  unin- 
spiring, tedious  and  undeveloping.  It  is,  as  it 
appears  in  great  part,  a material  civilization, 
with  a continual  mechanical  tendency;  there  is 
nothing  broadening  nor  spiritual  about  it.  A 
lawyer  is  a successful  drudge,  the  architect  a 
detailer,  the  doctor  and  all  professional  and  scien- 
tific pursuits  more  or  less  the  masters  of  a slavish 
and  intense  application,  purely  intellectual.  They 
do  the  thinking  and  another  man  the  labor,  one  is 
devoid  of  thought,  the  other  of  physcial  exertion ; 
such  a situation  develops  a man  in  reality  but 
little.  There  is  an  enormous  waste  in  our  intel- 
lectual training,  and  a tremendous  and  ever-in- 

67 


ELYSIA 


creasing  number  of  cases  of  nervous,  physical 
breadown  and  exhaustion.  Our  engineering  feats 
are  evidences  in  many  instances  of  wastefulness 
in  construction.  Iron  is  used  unsparingly,  coal 
wastefully  and  unnecessarily. 

The  conservation  of  natural  resources  under 
present  conditions  is,  as  a practical  thing,  a most 
difficult  and  important  problem.  A solution  with- 
out the  adoption  of  governmental  interference 
and  regulation  of  output  is  seemingly  impossible. 
Such  interference  is  going  to  meet  with  its  ob- 
jections, it  has  its  drawbacks.  In  the  face  of  pres- 
ent conditions,  as  the  resultant  of  law,  it  will 
effect  the  economic,  and  in  turn,  rights  and  privi- 
leges. It  means  another  autocratic  step  that  must 
be  taken  in  the  nature  of  enforced  remedy,  rather 
than  incipient  prevention. 

Now  much  of  this  waste  is  directly  traceable  to 
our  capitalistic  and  corporate  law.  The  corpo- 
rate gives  rise  to  an  unnatural  and  startling  de- 
mand. It  must  be  ever  feeding  on  genius,  it  is 
ever  testing  mental  and  physical  powers.  It  is 
without  question  the  great  enslaver  of  the  race. 
There  is  no  conservation  about  it.  Waste  in- 
stead of  being  individual  becomes  vast  and  far- 
reaching,  mistakes,  momentous,  follies,  gigantic. 

68 


GENIUS  AND  WASTE 


You  cannot  get  back  to  the  simple  life  and 
thread  your  way  through  the  maize  of  technical- 
ity which  our  corporate  law  not  only  represents, 
but  produces.  Law  after  law,  statute  after  sta- 
tute, but  adds  to  the  confusion  of  what  is  in  real- 
ity an  anarchic  and  uncertain  social  relationship. 
God  alone  can  bring  order  out  of  the  chaotic  con- 
fusion of  infinite  and  endless  detail, 


69 


FINANCIAL  SITUATION 

It  is  only  of  recent  date  that  the  President  of 
the  United  States  and  his  cabinet  refused  to  sup- 
port a group  of  American  Bankers  in  their  nego- 
tiation of  a $125,000,000  Chinese  loan.  Their  re- 
fusal to  take  part  in  this  transaction  aroused  a 
comment  over  the  country,  which  was  generally 
favorable  and  well  might  it  be  so,  for  it  involved 
a question  of  extra-territoriality,  and  was  so  spe- 
cial in  its  nature  as  to  be  a clear  case  of  govern- 
mental favoritism.  While  this  group  of  Ameri- 
cans were  endeavoring  to  loan  American  Deposits 
to  a foreign  power,  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
American  citizens  were  petitioning  the  brokers  of 
the  United  States  in  vain  for  loans  to  be  used  in 
the  improvement  and  development  of  property. 
High  rates  of  interest  and  high  commissions  were 
being  charged  for  accommodations  involving  no 
risk  of  loss  or  any  inconvenience.  Many  are  the 
deserving  applicants  who  were  being  turned  away 
with  a story  of  a money  scarcity,  and  many  were 
the  disappointments  that  met  cherished  plans  and 
deferred  hopes.  Yet,  here  alone,  we  know  of  a 
vast  sum  seeking  investment.  The  strange  situa- 

70 


FINANCIAL  SITUATION 


V* 


tion  of  an  American  citizen  unable  to  borrow  his 
own  money.  With  security  and  integrity  un 
questioned  lie  must  yield  his  place  to  the  for- 
eigner. at  the  door  of  his  own  American  Bank,  and 
was  not  only  asked  to  yield  his  place  to  the  for- 
eigner, but  to  lick  him,  if  he  failed  to  be  as  de- 
serving as  he.  Is  this  patriotism  or  is  this  busi- 
ness? Plainly  business,  and  a poor  business  at 
that.  I most  emphatically  disagree  with  those 
distinguished  gentlemen  who  think  our  financial 
situation  is  in  good  hands.  It  is  in  the  hands  of 
naught  but  exploiters,  who  are  deaf  to  every  sen- 
timent of  patriotic  appeal  and  blind  to  the  real 
demands  and  needs  of  the  American  people. 
They  rarely  consider  the  good  the  dollar  can  do, 
but  the  return  it  will  make.  This  financial  condi- 
tion is  but  a usurer’s  business,  and  if  the  business 
is  in  good  hands  it  is  not  because  the  business  is 
good,  but  the  management  safely  usurious.  Now, 
wherein  is  the  difficulty  and  the  mistake?  It  is 
fundamentally  this : our  system  of  finance  as  our 
business  generally  is  economic,  not  social.  The 
man  is  lost  sight  of  in  the  enormity  of  the  trans- 
actions involved.  These  enormous  loans  involve 
a responsibility  of  too  great  a magnitude.  They 
give  to  our  financial  institutions  a questionable- 


ELYSIA 


ness  they  might  not  otherwise  have.  It  means 
too  close  and  dependable  a relationship  between 
panic  and  the  stock  market.  The  surest  loan,  the 
wisest  loan,  the  best  loan  is  the  small  personal 
loan  on  improved  real  estate,  with  a good,  honest, 
temperate,  industrious  man  back  of  it.  There  you 
will  find  not  only  safety,  but  the  feeling  of  obli- 
gation; but  when  you  make  impersonal  loans,  as 
those  to  corporations,  you  are,  as  has  proven  to 
be  the  case,  oftentimes  loaning  on  naught  but  a 
monopolistic  idea  and  a temporary  earning  ca- 
pacity. 

In  the  face  of  all  this  we  are  met  with  a demand 
for  continued  centralization.  Get  a little  farther 
away  from  the  individual.  Enterprises  are  now  so 
gigantic,  some  bankers  tell  us,  that  such  centrali- 
zation is  required.  Enterprises  may  be  gigantic, 
but  legitimate  enterprise  is  yet,  as  it  always  has 
been,  small,  and  if  it  is  prosperous,  it  is  conserva- 
tive and  not  prodigal,  growing  naturally  and  not 
spasmodically  and  of  a sudden.  But  impersonal- 
ity is  not  the  only  evil  of  our  financial  system. 
There  are  many  others  deeply  and  firmly  rooted 
in  an  economic  idea,  in  its  turn  deeply  and  firmly 
rooted  in  an  ignorance  that  has  no  root  at  all,  and 
among  these  is  the  loaning  of  money  not  only  by 

72 


FINANCIAL  SITUATION 


banks,  but  by  individuals,  on  unimproved  realty. 
The  willingness  of  our  banking  institutions  and 
private  individuals  to  make  farm  loans,  and  their 
preference  for  this  class  of  security  to  that  of  im- 
proved real  estate,  is  but  a sign  of  the  confidence 
people  have  generally  in  the  continuation  of  land 
as  the  basis  of  exploitation.  This  preference  for 
farm  loans  has  done  much  to  enhance  land  values ; 
it  has  kept  huge,  yes,  enormous  sums  out  of  pro- 
ductive activity.  It  has  cheapened  the  idea  of 
improvement,  it  has  put  many  a check  on  busi- 
ness and  social  enterprise.  It  is  one  of  the  rea- 
sons for  high  prices,  one  of  the  reasons  for  low 
wages,  a great  social  misdemeanor. 

But  our  system  of  money  lending  is  so  operated 
as  to  be  conducive  of  a credit  rather  than  a cash 
system,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  why  financial  insti- 
tutions should  desire  it  so.  The  greater  the  credit 
system  the  greater  the  run  of  deposits,  and  the 
greater  the  amount  of  borrowing.  But  the  credit 
system  is  an  expensive  system,  and  the  one  in 
which  the  wealthy  man  invariably  has  the  advan- 
tage. The  banks  are  always  ready  to  receive  him 
and  money  is  nearly  always  his  for  the  asking. 
But  the  poor  man  when  he  wishes  to  borrow 
money,  even  though  he  may  furnish  good  mar- 

73 


ELYS  I A 


ginal  security,  is  very  often  refused  with  the  ex- 
cuse that  national  banks  cannot  loan  on  real 
estate  or  that  of  tightness  and  scarcity. 

, This  law,  passed  to  prevent  the  loaning  of 
i money  on  real  estate,  had  some  specific  reasons. 
Chief  of  which,  in  all  probability,  was  the  avoid- 
ance of  land  speculation  and  monopoly.  But  the 
good  that  was  in  truth  a basic  reason  for  this  law 
is  not  the  practice,  but  the  theory.  The  owner- 
ship of  vast  tracts  of  land  is  the  basis  of  credit 
and  the  basis  of  much  of  the  credit  given  by  our 
national  banks.  Labor  is  very  seldom  ever  the 
basis,  for  the  banks  extend  credit  on  that  which, 
under  the  existing  laws,  is  the  safest  and  best, 
and  this  is  very  often  a land  basis  or  a monopoly 
springing  from  an  extended  land  privilege. 

This  money  lending  on  farm  values  shows,  how- 
ever, no  signs  of  abatement.  There  is  a present 
agitation  in  favor  of  cheaper  money  for  the 
farmer.  It  is  maintained  that  cheaper  money  to 
him  will  mean  cheaper  prices  to  the  consumer, 
and  also  that  his  high  interest  rate,  which  is  now 
lower  than  that  of  any  other  class  of  our  popula- 
tion, is  the  cause  of  the  high  cost  of  his  produc- 
tion. Governmental  aid  is  the  proposed  remedy. 
Now  this  is  in  great  measure  a mistake,  any  oc- 

74 


FINANCIAL  SITUATION 


cupation  that  needs  governmental  support  is  a 
losing  and  venturesome  proposition,  and  it  is 
just  as  undesirable  that  the  state  take  part  in  it 
as  that  individuals  continue  it.  But  farming  is  * 
not  now  a losing  business.  It  is  a profitable  * 
business,  and  this  cheap  money  lending  is  not  with 
the  idea  of  making  farming  any  less  profitable, 
but  more  so.  It  would  subsidize  a higher  land 
value.  Now  cheap  money  to  the  farmer  and  he 
alone  is  class  distinction.  Its  benefits  would  re- 
sult in  giving  farming  a yet  higher  tone  of  inde- 
pendence. It  would  not  lower  land  values,  but  in- 
crease them,  and  the  interest  on  this  increased 
land  value  would  be  paid  by  the  community. 
Loaning  should  be  done  with  the  idea  that  the  bor- 
rower and  not  the  community  shall  repay.  The 
borrower  can  truly  repay  only  as  he  renders  serv- 
ice, that  is,  performs  labor,  so  labor  should  be 
first  and  fundamentally  the  basis  of  all  money  ad- 
vances. If  you  have  any  system  that  is  preferred 
to  this,  no  matter  how  low  the  interest  rate  may 
be  you  elevate  the  system  and  not  the  man. 

A repeal  of  the  corporate  idea  would  restore 
personality  to  our  loans,  while  it  would  unques- 
tionably do  away  with  one  great  instrument  and 
demand  of  concentration.  A correct  system  of 

75 


* 

i 


ELYSIA 


taxation  would  abolish  the  necessity  of  bond  is- 
sues and  render  greater  funds  accessible  for 
individual  need.  While  a heavy  tax  on  unim- 
proved realty  would  render  it  less  desirable  and 
safe  as  in  investment  and  bring  labor  nearer  a 
basis  for  money  advances,  and  elevate  it  to  the 
dignity  it  deserves.  Money  under  such  condi- 
tions would  be  always  more  plentiful,  at  a low 
rate  of  interest,  to  meet  the  needs  of  legitimate 
enterprise. 


76 


DEBT 

The  nation  is  in  debt,  the  state  is  in  debt,  the 
county,  township,  municipality  are  all  in  debt. 
Bonds,  Bonds,  Bonds,  such  is  the  only  possible 
method  the  branches  of  government  have  of  rais- 
ing enough  money  to  carry  out  needful  public  en- 
terprises. And  why  so?  Because  the  poor  man 
is  taxed  to  the  limit  and  the  rich  refuse  to  pay  a 
greater  tax  than  they  can  possibly  help.  If  just  a 
small  portion  of  the  unearned  increment  of  land, 
a small  portion  of  that  which  the  rich  get  through 
capitalistic  and  corporate  scheming  was  turned 
into  the  public  treasury,  there  never  would  be  a 
necessity  for  a bond  issue,  the  coffers  of  the  vari- 
ous branches  of  government  would  be  overflow- 
ing, public  improvement  would  be  surprising. 
The  castles  and  mansions  which  house  the  rich 
would  become  the  libraries,  the  city  halls,  the  pa- 
vilions, the  schools,  the  art  gallaries,  the  music 
halls,  the  baths,  the  gymnasiums,  the  coliseums, 
the  pride  of  our  village  centers.  Their  gardens 
would  be  the  parks,  the  play  grounds,  the  park- 
ways of  every  community.  What  a fascinating 
picture.  Where  would  be  the  end  of  civic  pride 

77 


ELYSIA 


and  civic  virtue.  What  an  inspiration  to  noble 
citizenship  and  priesthood  of  governmental  serv- 
ice. 


78 


TRADE  VS.  EXPLOITATION 


The  present  civilization  is  characterized  by  an 
enormous  trade  between  the  nations  of  the  world. 
The  magnitude  of  which  is  but  a sign  of  civiliza- 
tion’s advance.  It  is  something  not  only  to  be 
wondered  at,  but  encouraged.  A circumstance 
greatly  to  be  desired.  But  in  speaking  of  trade  is 
meant  the  process  of  a fair,  advantageous  and 
profitable  exchange,  not  exploitation,  nor  ex- 
change that  is  not  on  an  honorable  and  upright 
plane  of  dealing.  Nations,  as  individuals,  must 
regard  the  same  laws  of  business  honesty  or  they 
lose  eventually,  custom,  confidence  and  good  will. 
These  are  the  essentials  that  must  always  char- 
acterize the  successful  and  permanent  business 
institution,  and  also  a permanent  increasing  and 
profitable  national  commerce. 

But  national  ideas  are  far  behind  those  of  in- 
dividuals, they  partake  of  a narrowness,  a bias, 
oftentimes  an  unfairness  of  the  most  inexcusable 
type.  The  idea  of  exploitation  is  always  at  the 
surface.  It  is  an  exploitation  by  peaceful  means, 
but  none  the  less  an  exploitation,  and  as  a result 
leads  oftentimes  to  disagreements  that  are  and 

79 


ELYSIA 


can  be  settled  only  by  force  of  arms.  So  the  na- 
tions have  not  yet  passed  the  stage  of  war. 
Armaments  are  ever  on  the  increase  and  inter- 
national peace  is  always  in  jeopardy.  So  long  as 
nations  pursue  a policy  of  narrow  nationalism  in 
their  trade  relationships,  so  long  will  the  world’s 
peace  be  a long  way  off,  and  peace  prizes  and 
peace  endowments  be  of  little  consequence.  Af- 
ter all  the  ultimate  test  of  a man’s  and  nation’s 
Christianity,  their  basic  good  intent  is  the  pres- 
sure of  economy. 

Now  any  economy  is  false  that  is  basically  sus- 
picious and  distrustful  of  human  nature.  That  is 
discriminating  and  unfair  in  its  application  of 
principles  of  fundamental  moral  cognizance. 
The  armaments  and  armies  of  the  world  repre- 
sent a loss  and  a waste  that  certainly  no  policy 
entailing  a liberal  national  sacrifice  would  equal. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  a sacrifice  that  is  becoming 
greater  rather  than  less.  There  is  a false  idea 
prevalent  as  to  the  meaning  of  national  honor. 
Nations  are  even  more  sensitive  than  formerly  as 
to  what  constitutes  it.  Now  no  law  that  cannot 
and  should  not  be  of  local  application,  need  not 
and  should  not  be  international.  Principal  knows 
no  geographical  boundries  nor  is  it  subject  to 

80 


TRADE  VS.  EXPLOITATION 


racial  and  national  distinctions.  If  it  is  local  it 
is  world-wide.  If  our  laws  are  just  locally,  there 
need  never  be  any  complaint  by  the  rest  of  the 
world  as  to  their  operation.  Treaties  and  inter- 
national agreements  have  their  origin  not  only  in 
a narrow  national  policy,  but  in  a narrow  local 
one.  Their  origin  is  oftentimes  a mistake.  In 
the  main  a nation  that  rightfully  manages  its  own 
affairs,  is  not  the  one  most  likely  to  he  embroiled 
in  international  disagreements.  A correct  code 
of  law  regulating  the  acts  of  citizens,  as  between 
themselves,  will  he  generally  found  sufficient  to 
meet  all  the  requirements  of  international  comity. 
Treaties  and  Trade  agreements,  as  between  na- 
tions, are  but  the  outgrowth  of  governmental  in- 
terference in  individual  rights.  They  are  the  re- 
sultant of  a substantial  international  disagree- 
ment and  represent  naught  but  temporary  com- 
promise. They  are  not  progressive  in  character, 
but  oftentimes  a hindrance  and  check  upon  a freer 
exercise  of  individual  initiative  and  privilege. 
If  a man  will  not  trade  with  me  fair,  I need  hut 
cease  my  business  dealings  with  him ; if  he  and  I 
find  trade  to  our  mutual  advantage,  we  will  both 
be  only  too  glad  to  continue  it.  Trade  is  a mat- 
ter of  individual  right  and  individual  relation- 


ELYS  I A 


ships.  It  has  no  concern  tvitli  the  fundamental 
purpose  of  the  state,  and  where  the  state  permits 
itself  to  he  a party  in  the  squabbles  arising  over 
exchange  it  mixes  unnecessarily  in  private  busi- 
ness and  belittles  itself  and  its  purpose.  But 
these  international  disagreements  are  a continual 
source  of  annoyance  and  uncertainty.  They  ren- 
der trade  of  an  uncertain  character, they  give  rise 
to  an  untrue  and  narrow  conception  of  national 
right  and  honor.  They  arouse  national  animosi- 
ties and  drag  nations  into  wars  that  need  never 
have  been  anything  hut  individual  differences, 
peaceably  and  amicably  adjusted. 

Now  one  cause  is  a tariff,  whether  it  be  for 
protection  or  revenue  only.  It  represents  a nar- 
row nationalism,  a sectionalism.  It  is  a usurpa- 
tion of  individual  right  and  privilege.  It  denies 
me  a freedom  of  the  contractual  relation  when  I 
deal  with  a man  of  another  race  or  nation.  It  is 
governmental  usurpation  pure  and  simple.  It 
knows  no  universality  of  principal.  It  is  as  nar 
row  as  the  old  Greek  idea  that  all  other  than 
Greeks  were  barbarians,  or  the  Boman  idea  that 
other  than  Bomans  were  not  citizens.  It  is  fun- 
damentally so  narrow  that  it  is  by  nature  warlike 
and  unchristian.  Another  is  the  idea  of  national 


82 


TRADE  VS.  EXPLOITATION 


exploitation,  either  for  the  expansion  of  a trade 
unnaturally  stimulated  or  the  development  of  a 
social  condition  among  a people  at  a heavy  and 
usurious  rate  of  profit.  These  things  have  no 
moral  side,  and  moral  law  is  the  basis  of  all  real 
social  advance. 

Alien  ownership  of  land  is  but  a continuation 
into  international  relationships  of  absentee  land- 
lordism and  extra  territoriality.  Its  solution  in- 
volves the  question  of  the  homogeneity  of  a pop- 
ulation which,  it  is  generally  considered,  a nation 
has  the  right  to  maintain  and  the  proposition 
which  is  local  in  its  application  of  the  justice  of 
an  absentee  system  of  land  ownership,  especially 
where  it  meets  with  no  limitations. 

The  basis  of  a prosperous  and  exemplary  stand- 
ing as  a great  and  irresistible  power  in  the  prog- 
ress of  the  world,  where  might  makes  right  and 
right  fearsome  and  undeniable  dare  not  be  as- 
sailed. Where  the  very  majesty  of  justice  creates 
consternation  in  the  ranks  of  those  who  question 
is  the  support  by  a just  and  equitable  administra- 
tion of  internal  law  of  a correct  social  order. 


83 


CRIMINALITY  AND  CIVILIZATION 


Great  cities  are  the  product  of  economic  rather 
than  social  causes,  and  from  economy  springs  the 
pathological  in  human  nature  and  society.  Con- 
gestion is  conducive  to  an  uncleanness,  both  of 
body  and  morals,  and  being  devoid  of  a proper 
conception  of  beauty  and  feeling  of  healthful 
exercise,  shuts  a man  off  from  an  adequate  op- 
portunity for  natural  investigation,  which  is  the 
basis  of  belief  in  the  operation  of  divine  law,  and 
the  fundamental  in  evolutionary  and  spiritual 
progress.  So  our  cities  are  heathenistic,  for  the 
air  is  so  impure,  the  surroundings  so  unsightly, 
the  sounds  so  annoying,  the  tastes  so  unnatural, 
not  one  of  all  the  senses  but  is  deceived  and 
limited.  A man  to  be  natural  must  live  naturally, 
or  you  have  but  a partly  grown,  partly  developed, 
unfinished  product,  unnatural  in  desires  and 
tastes,  in  habit  and  mode  of  life.  A man  must  be 
physically  well  environed  and  physically  well  de- 
veloped to  have  a fair  chance  at  an  intellectual 
approach.  Now,  intelligence  is  not  all  of  books, 
it  is  much  of  the  body,  in  fact,  more  of  it  is  of  the 
body  than  our  social  judgment  rightfully  consid- 
ers. The  human  race  cannot  grow  in  respect  to 


CRIMINALITY  AND  CIVILIZATION 


the  head  alone,  if  it  does  you  have  a monstrosity 
as  hideous  as  any  brutish  form,  and  just  as  incap- 
able and  untrustworthy.  Culture  and  refinement 
have  a physical  side.  Social  encouragement  of 
an  intellectual  approach  beyond  the  bounds  of  a 
fundamental  need  is  but  a fallacious  development 
of  mentalities,  and  a corresponding  weakening  of 
the  physical  organism.  An  intellectual  error  is 
but  a physical  deformity.  Abstract  thought  is 
fundamentally  of  little  value  to  the  human  race. 
Every  thought,  that  cannot  find  in  act  expression, 
is  rather  useless  to  society,  and  will  generally  be 
found  to  be  outside  the  pale  of  truthful  knowl- 
edge. 

So  all  our  schools  and  colleges,  our  centers  of 
learning  will  develop  into  but  training  schools  of 
idleness,  unless  they  are  in  turn  supported  by  a 
natural  social  order  that  gives  a corresponding 
impetus  to  physical  development  and  exertion. 
Now  this  physical  development  is  every  whit  as 
important  as  the  intellectual  idea..  You  cannot 
by  training  the  mind  develop  the  body.  Man  is  a 
physic  creature.  He  grows  by  expression,  not  by 
repression.  He  does  not  spring  up  in  a night,  his 
growth  is  a matter  of  years,  and  his  training 
must  cover  a considerable  period.  His  growth 

85 


into  an  occupation  is  as  gradual  as  his  growth 
into  himself.  You  cannot  teach  a boy  arithmetic, 
algebra,  geography,  spelling,  develop  his  mind 
alone  until  he  is  18  years  old  and  then  expect  him 
to  be  physically  much  good  at  anything.  He  is 
after  such  a period  all  mentality.  He  clings  to 
’and  is  inclined  to  a sedentary  life  and  profession. 
His  athletic  prowess  is  rather  uncertain,  his  athle- 
tic achievements  rather  transitory.  It  requires 
effort  to  get  him  into  a condition  that  was  his  nat- 
urally and  an  effort  to  keep  him  there.  Cramming 
of  the  physical  makeup  is  just  as  foolish  as  a 
cramming  of  the  intellectual.  Both  are  severe 
strains  on  the  powers  of  retention  and  a weak- 
ening of  the  will  power.  Man  comes  in  the  full- 
ness of  time.  You  may  hasten  his  growth  by  ar- 
tificial means,  but  you  dwarf  his  tenacious  power, 
his  hold  upon  life  and  upon  himself.  When  you 
build  a man  for  eternity  it  takes  eternity  to  build 
him,  but  if  you  build  him  in  a period  of  years,  you 
have  a man  only  so  many  cubits  long. 

So  it  is  important  that  youth  be  a period  of 
freedom,  a period  of  observation,  not  all  a period 
of  intellectual  development.  What  boy  is  there 
who  at  12  can  now  be  about  his  father’s  business, 
not  as  a hired  hand,  but  because  it  is  a labor  of 

86 


CRIMINALITY  AND  CIVILIZATION 


love,  not  one  that  overtaxes  his  strength,  but 
arouses  his  desire,  opens  and  strengthens  his 
ideals,  allows  him  to  Build  with  his  own  hand  the 
day  dreams  of  his  youth.  But  youth  and  age  have 
here  no  companionship.  They  are  greatly  sepa- 
rated, both  as  to  time  and  place.  The  boy  learns 
idleness  because  he  is  not  close  enough  to  his 
father  at  an  impressionable  age  to  learn  the  joy- 
ousness of  labor.  So  we  have  a civilization  of 
towers,  the  boy  looks  up  and  scarce  wonders.  He 
has  not  seen  a rivet  placed  nor  drilled  a hole.  He 
knows  his  father  as  but  a tired  man  carrying  a 
tin  bucket. 

Herein  is  the  philosophy  of  theft  and  of  crime. 
It  originates  and  breeds  where  alleys  are  play- 
grounds, where  observation  is  not  of  useful 
things,  but  of  debauch  and  intemperate  idleness. 
Where  labor  is  spoken  of  as  hardship  and  ex- 
ample is  a conspiracy  against  nature.  All  our 
civilization  with  its  towering  achievements 
amounts  to  but  little  in  the  end  if  it  be  accom- 
panied by  the  idea,  and  the  fact  that  the  end 
sought  is  the  avoidance  of  physical  application, 
and  a man,  by  reading  a book  on  skyscrapers,  is 
as  much  and  truly  a builder  as  though  he  drove 
each  nail  and  put  every  brick  in  place. 

87 


ELYS  I A 


The  boy  is  father  to  the  man,  but  if  he  is  poorly 
fathered  he  is  a poor  man.  This  absenteeism  of 
the  basic  example  in  all  youthful  attainment,  the 
separation  and  lack  of  sympathy  between  father 
and  son,  mother  and  daughter,  the  disintegration 
of  the  family  and  the  distinctiveness  of  individual 
interest.  The  lack  of  parental  application  from 
the  pressure  of  economic  necessity,  this  is  a suf- 
ficient reason  for  the  weakness  that  is  ever  pre- 
senting itself  in  object  lessons  of  family  life.  A 
strong  sympathetic  family  is  the  unit  upon  which 
in  turn  the  state  .depends  for  its  strength  and 
support.  You  cannot  substitute  for  the  idealisms 
of  life,  monotony  and  systematization.  Routine 
can  never  take  the  place  of  family,  nor  absentee- 
ism be  the  basis  of  affection. 


38 


VICE  AND  ECONOMY 


Social  ideas  change  with  Economy,  as  the  Eco- 
nomic idea  ascends  the  social  descends.  The  eco- 
nomic is  the  antithesis  of  the  social  and  natural, 
and  is  conducive  to  those  social  notions  which  are 
naught  but  mistakes,  wrongs  and  injustices.  So- 
ciety becomes  so  used  to  hearing  what  wealth  can 
do  that  it  loses  sight  of  what  man  can  do.  So- 
cialism in  its  present  plan  and  pui'pose  is  not  so- 
cialism, but  economyism.  Wherever  the  eco- 
nomic ides  is  stronger  than  the  social,  wherever 
it  is  encouraged  and  the  social  discouraged  we 
find  vice  and  unreliability  on  the  increase  and  the 
higher  idealisms  of  life  belittled  with  the  thought 
of  impractical.  Such  is  the  tendency  of  modern 
times.  Practicality  is  never  separate  from  the 
ideal,  but  economic  enterprise  is  conspiring  to 
dwarf  faith  in  the  higher  and  ideal  conceptions 
of  life,  and  substitute  an  alluring  and  tempting 
conception,  careless  and  irresponsible,  weak  and 
vacillating,  fearful  and  uncertain,  sinful  and 
chaotic,  and  every  problem  that  confronts  us  as 
social  is  more  or  less  urged  on  and  supported  by 
a basically  economic,  fallacious  law  and  order.  I 
believe  in  man  and  society,  in  social  pleasures,  so- 


ELYSIA 


cial  efforts,  social  ideas,  but  I have  no  faith  in 
economy  as  a factor  in  any  progressive  move- 
ment. It  is  the  law  of  the  underworld  and  the 
sooner  we  rid  ourselves  of  it,  the  sooner  will 
those  social  efforts  well  meaning,  but  greatly  in- 
sufficient, become  of  consequence  for  civic  right- 
eousness. The  fight  is  between  man  and  the  dol- 
lar. Society  and  Economy.  You  cannot  serve 
God  and  Mammon.  It  is  a law  of  love  or  no  law 
at  all,  and  all  the  efforts  of  man  cannot  establish 
nor  invent  another. 

When  you  encourage  a young  man  or  woman 
to  put  off  the  responsibilities  of  marriage  when 
the  time  is  ripe,  the  desire  strong,  the  idealisms 
true  and  the  results  of  consequence,  when  you  be- 
\ little  one  of  the  natural  and  fundamental  institu- 
tions of  life  and  substitute  as  practical,  a linger- 
ing, dilly  dally,  superficial  and  unmeaning  prac- 
tice, you  encourage  every  vice  human  nature  is 
subject  to,  and  every  weakness  of  which  it  is  cap- 
able. Extravagance  and  superficiality  of  amuse- 
ment, intemperance  and  irresponsibility,  disre- 
gard, selfishness,  the  vicious  in  human  nature, 
take  the  place  of  a companionship  that  produces 
virtue,  temperance,  industry  and  Christian  citi- 
zenship. Human  nature  is  not  half  bad  if  you 

90 


VICE  AND  ECONOMY 


give  it  half  a chance.  But  a strange  inconsist- 
ency meets  us  in  the  fact  that  while  the  marriage 
relationship  should  be  contracted  younger  if  in- 
telligence and  precocity  are  ahead,  rather  than  be- 
hind former  times,  it  is  being  contracted  later  in 
life.  This  means  fundamentally  that  the  physical 
and  mental  is  in  reality  behind,  rather  than  ahead 
of  the  times  and  vice  and  divorce,  intemperance 
and  deformity  are  on  a continual  increase.  It  is 
not  a shortness  of  life  in  the  face  of  hardship 
and  accomplishment,  but  a longevity  of  weakness 
and  inaccomplishment.  The  fineness  and  finish 
of  a civilization  are  no  criterion  as  to  its  strength 
and  durability. 

A young  woman  at  18  snould  be  fitted  and 
ready  for  the  great  services  of  life  and  oppor- 
tuity  be  commensurate  with  desire.  A young 
man  at  20  should  be  trained  and  educated  to  do 
a man’s  work  and  it  be  given  him,  he  should  have 
his  place  that  he  may  fill  it.  Morality  demands 
it,  Christianity  teaches  it,  the  law  should  enforce 
it,  but  when  you  deny  a man  a man’s  right,  the 
fullest  opportunity  for  the  exercise  and  develop- 
ment of  his  faculties,  you  dwarf  his  intelligence, 
his  ambition,  the  whole  scheme  of  life’s  opera- 
tion. 


91 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  GOVERNMENTAL 
POWER 


The  first  symptom  of  republican  decline  and  the 
beginning  of  an  autocratic  and  despotic  regime 
! is  the  extension  by  one  method  or  another  of  gov- 
ernmental power.  At  first  this  extension  assumes 
a democratic  guise,  but  gradually  in  the  course 
of  events  reaches  the  stage  where  it  can  no  longer 
with  any  pretense  to  truth  so  defend  itself  and 
the  bold  fact  is  announced  of  republican  failure. 

This  assumption  of  power  is  a thing  which  the 
people  must  closely  guard  if  they  long  retain  their 
position  as  free  men,  and  it  must  be  guarded  jeal- 
ously and  intelligently  or  demagogy  gets  the 
upper  hand.  The  tendency  is  always  for  those  in 
positions  of  trust  whether  it  be  executive,  legis- 
lative or  judicial  to  extend  rather  than  diminish 
it,  and  the  rivalry  for  place  gives  rise  to  a jeal- 
ousy and  suspicion  which  but  exaggerates  and  ag- 
gravates acts  and  intentions.  There  is  no  neces- 
sity of  intricate,  complicated  and  massive  legal 
verbiage  for  the  preservation  of  right  and  the 
maintenance  of  justice,  and  successive  measures 
are  very  often  a confession  of  failure  on  the  part 

92 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  GOVERNMENTAL  POWER 


of  laws  preceding  which  should  have  been  re- 
pealed rather  than  remedied,  and  the  state  is 
also  too  often  induced  to  meddle  in  affairs  in 
which  rightfully  it  has  no  concern,  and  such  in- 
terference but  confuses  and  adds  to  a legal  tangle 
out  of  which  justice  is  after  considerable  delay 
and  with  difficulty  and  much  cost  finally  extri- 
cated. 

The  strong  government  is  one  that  always  la-  \ 
bors  toward  simplicity,  that  takes  to  itself  only 
such  powers  as  the  preservation  of  peace  and 
order  of  society  necessitate  and  those  which  not 
a bare  but  a great  majority  may  willingly  sur- 
render with  cognizance  of  social  advantage  and 
betterment.  Government  that  is  truly  such  is  not 
that  of  a majority  so  much  as  that  of  unanimity. 

A government  of  bare  majorities  is  one  that  is 
always  proposing  questions  upon  which  rightfully 
there  is  a wide  divergence  of  opinion,  and  these, 
if  it  is  sensible,  it  avoids  rather  than  encourages, 
for  their  solution  and  enforcement  are  always  un- 
certain and  their  presentation  the  cause  of  much 
friction  and  loss. 

The  old  doctrine  of  social  compact  has  it  that 
in  government  individuals  surrender  to  each 
other  that  is  to  government  certain  rights  and 

93 


ELYSIA 


privileges  in  order  that  they  may  more  safely  en- 
joy those  they  retain,  and  the  problem  of  govern- 
ment itself  would  make  these  rights  as  few  as 
possible,  rather  than  numerous  for  the  surren- 
der of  numerous  rights,  but  confuses  the  indi- 
vidual as  to  those  which  remain  and  hampers 
him  in  the  exercise  of  initiatives  in  which  others 
may  not  be  concerned.  , 

Eights  are  personal  and  individual  in  nature 
and  not  collective,  and  the  moment  you  undertake 
a collectivism  of  rights,  you  undertake  the  im- 
possible. It  but  resolves  society  into  groups 
striving  for  powers  rather  than  individuals  and 
wrongs  become  more  extensive  and  offenses  more 
frequent. 

So  when  the  state  assumes  powers,  it  should  be 
only  after  careful  analysis  of  the  need  and  not 
with  the  mistaken  idea  that  that  which  a man  sur- 
renders that  he  can  also  keep.  The  idea  that  a 
trusteeship  of  rights  in  government  is  as  desira- 
ble as  individual  retention  is  a most  dangerous 
fallacy,  for  after  all  the  trusteeship  has  back  of 
it  personality,  and  it  is  to  the  weakness  and  abuse 
springing  out  of  a disinterested  personality  that 
the  government  owes  it  troubles  and  weaknesses. 
The  fundamental  purpose  of  the  state  is  not  to 

94 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  GOVERNMENTAL  POWER 


act  as  trustee,  but  guardian,  and  insure  to  its  citi- 
zens rights,  not  assume  them.  The  great  fault 
with  present-day  reform  is  that  it  refuses  to  get 
to  the  root  of  the  evil  and  eradicate  it,  but  rather 
to  conciliate  wrong  by  palliation.  Our  political 
doctrinaires  and  all  of  our  political  parties  are 
of  this  tendency.  They  are  remedists  and  not 
constructionists.  They  would  build  up  and  elab- 
orate upon  a continually  increasing  legal  tech- 
nicality, which  means  that  justice  can  be  sought 
and  found  only  with  ever-increasing  difficulty. 
They  lose  sight  of  the  individual  before  they  have 
even  started  in  their  reasoning,  and  find  them- 
selves soon  arguing  and  debating  upon  a mass  of 
abstractions  that  have  no  basis  either  in  com- 
mon sense  nor  experience.  The  great  public  finds 
itself  unable  to  understand,  and  willing  to  accept 
verbosity  as  wisdom  becomes  the  gullible  tool  of 
an  egotistical  and  mistaken  intellectuality. 


95 


THE  REMEDIAL  AND  THE  CONSTRUC- 
TIVE 


There  is  much  on  our  statute  books  that  under 
a correct  and  just  social  order  supported  by  the 
state  would  be  uncalled  for  and  unnecessary.  In 
fact,  would  be  regarded  as  an  infringement  of 
personal  liberty.  But  the  state  laboring  orig^ 
inally  on  the  side  of  an  unjust  social  system  is 
as  a flagellant,  ever  bandaging  self-inflicted 
wounds.  This  legislation  of  that  type  that  might 
be  termed  remedial  is  a frequent  makeshift  of 
the  legislator  to  bridge  a present  indefensible  so- 
cial condition.  Long  hours  of  work  for  the  young, 
far  longer  than  growth  and  adolescence  can  with- 
stand. Tasks  too  difficult  and  strenuous  for  sex- 
ual makeup.  Carelessness  and  indifference  as  to 
health  and  safety  of  employes.  An  unfeeling, 
cold,  unsympathetic,  soulless  system  of  moralities 
is  a condition  the  government  finds  itself  called 
upon  to  contend  with.  Each  and  every  one  of 
which  is  a resultant  of  governmental  privilege. 
Each  and  every  one  being  fostered  and  nurtured 
by  corporate  law,  that  cold,  soulless,  senseless 
statute  that  does  naught  but  incorporate  into  so- 


THE  REMEDIAL  AND  THE  CONSTRUCTIVE 


ciety  its  own  attributes.  But  remedial  legislation 
is  a poor  type  of  legislation.  It  is  never  that  of 
the  statesman  nor  humanitarian.  It  is  the  favor- 
ite instrument  of  the  demagogue  who  would  per- 
petuate himself  and  the  jingo  who  is  ever  seeking 
a change.  Constructive  legislation  is  the  only 
kind  a great  and  progressive  state  ever  knows. 
It  is  the  only  kind  that  ever  lasts.  It  is  the  only 
kind  that  ever  satisfies,  but  remedial  legislation 
is  never  sufficient.  It  must  be  ever  extending 
itself,  and  with  every  extension  shows  only  the 
more  clearly  the  futility  of  the  groundwork  upon 
which  it  is  founded,  the  hypocrisy  and  deceit  of 
the  capitalistic  idea  and  the  crime  of  its  recog- 
nition in  the  basic  law  of  a state. 


97 


FORM  AND  SUBSTANCE 

It  is  the  natural  order  of  things  that  the  state 
be  held  responsible  for  the  social  conditions  of 
its  citizens  and  the  government  be  strong  or  weak 
as  the  internal  condition  is  either  prosperous  or 
otherwise.  The  very  existence  of  the  state  is  in 
this  day  and  age  dependent  upon  the  whim,  the 
caprice,  the  tone  of  social  feeling.  The  state, 
not  the  individual,  is  held  at  fault.  Uneasy  is 
the  head  that  wears  a crown,  but  unrest  is  not 
confined  to  monarchy.  Republics  as  well  are  con- 
stantly suffering  spasms  of  internal  commotion 
and  change.  It  is  but  another  phase  of  human 
nature  in  its  strife  after  consciousness.  A social 
effort  for  the  attainment  of  peace  and  happiness. 
Now  what  society  must  learn  is  that  it  is  not  only 
the  form  but  the  substance  of  law  that  may  be 
at  fault.  Monarchy  as  a form  has  been  con- 
demned and  is  passing,  while  republicanism  is 
taking  its  place.  But  a good  monarchy  may  be 
much  desired  over  a bad  republic.  The  substance 
of  the  law  is  ever  as  important  as  the  scheme 
of  its  operation.  The  material  as  important  as 
the  design.  Rome  was  a republic,  but  chose  to 

98 


FORM  AND  SUBSTANCE 


become  a monarchy  again.  There  is  much  in  lead- 
ership. It  will  be  ever  so,  and  form  can  never 
displace  it.  But  leadership  may  be  ambitious  and 
leadership  may  be  mistaken.  If  republicanism  is 
the  form,  think  not  that  leadership  has  less  a 
place,  it  is  the  same  but  different  as  it  operates. 
In  monarchy  it  is  of  force ; in  republicanism  it  is 
of  persuasion.  Whether  we  are  any  more  ready 
for  it  than  the  Romans  were  depends  upon 
whether  we  are  any  more  Christian,  ready  to  give 
a listening  ear  and  heed  experienced  counsel. 
Will  substance  coincide  with  form  in  being  a 
liberal  and  democratic  recognition  of  human 
rights,  or  will  idealism  end  in  theory  and  practice 
be  but  continuance  of  custom  is  the  future  enigma, 


99 


IMPETUOSITY 


Our  government  has  been  censured,  its  form 
has  been  criticized,  changes  of  great  importance 
have  been  advocated.  Honesty  has  been  ascribed 
to  the  many  and  dishonesty  to  a few,  but  these 
few  nearly  always  happen  to  be  those  in  position 
of  trust.  Suspicion  is  the  current  fashion  of  those 
who  seek  position,  and  explanation  is  the  current 
fashion  of  those  who  would  retain  it.  Honesty 
after  all  but  proves  itself  intelligence,  and  the 
trouble  is  not  that  the  way  is  not  paved  with 
good  intentions,  but  that  they  are  not  intelligent 
ones. 

A conflict  between  the  form  and  substance  of 
government  is  unavoidable  where  they  do  not 
both  advance  the  same  end,  and  this  conflict  gives 
rise  to  such  intense  disagreement  that  motives 
and  character  are  assailed  and  the  basic  element 
of  good  intent,  a most  common  trait  of  human  na- 
ture, is  vigorously  and  viciously  accused.  Such 
is  the  present  tendency  and  in  such  a condition 
of  society  the  time  is  ripe  for  the  demagogue 
and  doctrinaire.  Public  opinion  in  the  feverish 
whirl  of  compromise  and  disagreement  arrives 

100 


IMPETUOSITY 


at  no  decision  of  moment.  A chaotic,  anarchic 
condition  grips  society  and  unconscious  and  con- 
scious murmurings  of  truth  fall  from  lips  least 
likely  to  be  heard  or  heeded. 

So  we  have  our  Supreme  Court  decisions  criti- 
cized and  our  judges  accused.  The  individual  is 
belittled  in  his  own  eyes  before  the  questionable- 
ness of  those  whom  he  has  thought  fit  to  trust. 
The  pessimist,  the  accuser,  oftentimes  a hypo- 
crite, belittles  manhood,  for  he  attacks  the  citadel 
of  honesty^  Principal  is  above  man,  it  makes 
him,  it  can  be  ever  recognized.  Personality  is 
of  little  consequence.  If  I cannot  prove  intelli- 
gence the  basis  of  my  stand,  I have  no  place  either 
here  nor  there. 

The  courts  of  our  land  are  filled  with  men  of 
purpose,  noble  in  aim  and  high  of  hope,  but  they 
cannot  and  never  will  be  able  to  relate  a sub- 
stantive law  of  mean  conception  to  a principal  of 
enduring  potentiality.  So  we  have  poor  laws, 
remedial  in  nature  to  be  construed  in  the  fight  of 
permanency.  This  cannot  be  done.  The  consti- 
tution of  this  country  is  an  exceptional  document. 
It  is  exceptional  in  spirit  and  in  form,  but  it  calls 
for  the  exercise  under  it  of  a great  constructive 
faculty,  and  when  you  endeavor  to  harmonize  and 

101 


ELYSIA 


associate  it  with  remedies  you  are  attempting  the 
impossible.  Minimum  wage  bills,  child  labor 
laws,  liability  acts  are  not  of  a nature  to  conform 
with  a spiritual  conception  of  a great  state.  They 
are  but  a confession  of  failure,  the  resort  of  a 
decrepit  and  unsatisfactory  leadership. 

But  in  addition  to  remedial  laws,  we  have  the 
remedist  in  the  character  of  a cpmmissianor,,and 
if  the  nation  wishes  to  get  hack  to  the  monarchial 
system  there  is  no  better  nor  shorter  road.  If 
ever  autocracy  would  clothe  itself,  it  could  choose 
scarce  a better  habit.  When  a state  is  in  such  a 
condition  that  the  subtle  actions  of  its  citizens 
can  have  an  extended  influence  over  a great  com- 
munity, when  secrecy  is  prompted  by  the  nature 
of  law  and  not  the  nature  of  the  act,  but  the  in- 
centive to  it  is  made  the  basis  of  indictment,  we 
have  a deplorable  situation. 

The  grant  of  special  privilege  carries  with  it 
eventually  the  necessity  of  a special  analysis  and 
judgment.  It  but  adds  to  the  burdensomeness 
of  the  law  and  shows  more  clearly  the  imprac- 
ticality  of  enormous  legal  verbiage  and  the  im- 
possibility of  justice  being  coincident  with  a per- 
siflage of  technicality. 

Subtlety  is  a part  of  the  corporate  system, 


IMPETUOSITY 


which  is  a fraud  and  swindle  from  beginning  to 
end.  Its  origin  is  in  privilege,  it  exists  without 
reason,  it  encourages  and  practices  deception,  con- 
centrating and  gathering  to  itself  as  an  octopus. 
We  are  yet  tempted,  but  it  is  not  always  a ser- 
pent. 

When  the  decisions  of  our  judiciary  do  not  co- 
incide with  legislative  enactment,  be  not  so  ever 
ready  to  criticize  and  censure,  to  question  judicial 
integrity,  for  a more  intelligent  examination  may 
show  that  the  nature  of  our  legislative  acts  fall 
far  short  of  a constitutional  standard.  Our  legis- 
lators are  unfortunately  not  the  equals  of  our 
judges,  either  in  a moral  or  intellectual  sense, 
and  even  so  in  their  fidelity  to  the  functions  of 
their  office.  If  the  courts  have  done  anything,  I 
would  not  choose  to  call  it  dishonesty,  for  I cast 
a stigma  not  only  on  them,  but  representing,  as 
they  must,  a standard  of  social  integrity  and  in- 
telligence, upon  the  great  body  of  our  citizenship. 
I choose  rather  to  think  that  it  is  because  they 
have  been  performing  as  near  as  they  were  able 
the  functions  of  their  office,  but  the  conflict  is  be- 
tween poorly  and  corruptly  enacted  substantive 
law  oftentimes  remedial,  and  our  constitutional 
form,  and  the  courts  have  been  endeavoring  to 

103 


ELYSIA 


tell  us  that  such  laws  are  un-American  and  do  not 
conform  with  the  spirit  of  our  constitutional  idea. 
That  is,  this  country  remedial  legislation  is  no 
legislation.  It  is  below  the  dignity  of  an  enlight- 
ened and  progressive  state  which  must  always 
and  ever  be  constructive  in  its  acts  and  policies. 


104 


WEAKNESS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  GOVERN- 
MENT 


The  idea  that  we  have  a strong  national  gov- 
ernment is  erroneous.  It  is  a weak  government. 
It  was  weak  when  it  originated,  and  it  is  weak 
today,  and  this  weakness  is  becoming  more  and 
more  apparent  as  it  comes  in  contact  with  great 
corporate  power.  Corporate  power  can  exact  a 
direct  tribute  from  the  people,  but  the  govern- 
ment can  levy  no  direct  tax,  and  its  efforts  are 
strongly  in  support  of  the  great  corporate  enter- 
prises, which  are  inimical  to  popular  interest. 

Our  government  originated  when  the  state’s 
rights  idea  was  strong,  and  though  we  have  had  a 
great  civil  war  to  formulate  and  strengthen  the 
national  idea,  our  national  government,  except 
in  its  possibilities,  is  no  stronger  as  regards  its 
attitude  toward  the  individual  citizen  than  it  was 
before.  It  pursues  the  same  economic  regime,  its 
taxing  power  remains  practically  limited  as  it 
has  been  to  an  indirect  system.  It  comes  in  con- 
tact with  the  individual  openly  in  but  few  in- 
stances, and  in  all  others  chooses  to  work  unseen 
and  unnoticed. 


105 


ELYSIA 


Wlien  our  National  Government  was  formed, 
state  jealousies  and  sectionalistic  ideas  prevented 
the  states  from  giving  to  the  National  Govern- 
ment the  power  to  levy  a direct  tax.  This  system 
of  revenue  they  retained  for  themselves,  for  it 
was  a dependable  and  producing  one,  but  the 
other  was  not,  and  that  it  has  become  so  is  due  to 
no  fault  of  the  states  themselves,  but  the  pressure 
of  special  and  favored  interests.  If  we  enjoyed 
free  trade  in  this  country  and  the  special  inter- 
ests were  not  protected,  the  government  could 
raise  scarcely  any  revenue  and  bond  issues  would 
avail  but  little,  as  credit  would  be  at  a minimum. 
So  our  government  has  found  it  necessary  to  sup- 
port a system  favorable  to  privilege  in  order  to 
have  power,  and  it  has  acquired  power  and  exer- 
cised it  at  the  expense  of  its  citizens. 

When  times  were  bad,  trade  fell  off  and  reve- 
nue was  reduced,  the  government  was  so  weak 
it  could  do  nothing  for  the  people.  At  the  very 
moment  they  needed  a powerful  and  strong  state 
to.  come  to  their  assistance  it  was  foundering  on 
the  rocks  of  insolvency.  So  it  has  ever  been. 
It  is  not  because  free  trade  is  wrong,  but  because 
an  indirect  system  of  taxation  is  weak,  and  a free 
trader  might  as  well  stand  for  anarchy.  Let  us 

106 


WEAKNESS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  GOVERNMENT 


hope  that  republicanism,  though  it  has  taught  us 
at  much  expense  the  secret  of  our  weakness,  has 
at  least  strengthened  our  national  conception. 
Republicanism  is  certainly  a narrow  Ism  for  a 
great  state,  but  ours  is  in  reality  no  state  at  all, 
but  an  Idea.  We  have  a National  Idea,  but  no 
National  State. 

Republicanism  is  incompatible  with  the  govern- 
ment it  has  strengthened,  for  it  would  have  it 
that  everything  we  consumed  we  produced,  no 
matter  how  great  our  fitnes  and  protection  would 
limit  and  restrict  the  trade  to  such  an  extent 
that  we  would  import  nothing,  but  export  every- 
thing and  consequently  have  to  remodel  our  sys- 
tem from  an  import  tax  eventually  into  an  export 
one.  So  the  first  thing  for  us  to  do  before  we 
lose  our  heads  over  the  impracticability  of  de- 
mocracy and  the  follies  of  republicanism  is  to 
organize  and  maintain  a strong  National  Gov- 
ernment. This  can  be  done  not  alone  by  endow- 
ing it  with  an  admirable  form  and  a beatific  ideal- 
ism, but  also  with  a strong,  honorable,  just,  open 
and  infallible  system  of  taxation.  You  must  give 
it  life,  dynamic  power,  or  it  is  a useless,  deceitful 
and  cold  idol  of  Nationality. 

The  Democratic  party  is  attempting  to  right 
107 


ELYSIA 


the  injustices  which  have  sprung  up  out  of  our 
indirect  system,  and  have  been  strengthened  by 
the  possibility  of  levying  an  income  tax  in  con- 
junction with  a reduced  tariff.  But  the  income 
tax,  while  direct,  is  the  weakest,  most  rotten  and 
unjust  system  of  direct  taxation  that  can  be  estab- 
lished. It  is  too  uncertain.  It  is  unpleasantly  in- 
quisitive. It  cannot  but  be  conducive  to  dishonesty 
and  injustice.  Circumstances  should  be  that  a 
state  should  not  find  it  necessary  to  take  from  a 
man  what  he  has  made,  nor  inquire  as  to  how 
he  has  made  it,  but  should  see  to  it  that  the  op- 
portunity for  honest  making  be  the  only  method 
afforded  and  allow  a man  to  remain  in  an  un- 
disturbed possession  of  the  fruits  of  his  labor. 


108 


CONSERVATISM  AND  RADICALISM 


There  is  no  political  party  in  the  United  States 
today  that  is  conservative  and  fundamentally 
logical  and  progressive.  They  are  all  more  or 
less  radical,  and  this  radicalism  is  ever  on  the 
side  of  injustice.  It  is  either  that  of  narrow  in- 
difference or  hasty  and  overzealous  remedyism. 
Strongly  antagonistic,  none  are  right  either  in 
the  theory  advanced  or  applied.  As  a result  of 
this  chaotic  and  unsatisfactory  condition  our  na- 
tional politics  is  to  a sensible  man  rather  an  un- 
satisfactory and  uncertain  problem. 

We  appear  to  be  drifting,  and  no  man  knows 
whither,  unless  it  be,  as  the  last  election  seemed 
to  show,  toward  Socialism.  Socialism  is  gaining 
because  it  means  a change  from  Corporate  to 
Governmental  Capitalism,  and  it  is  because  Cor- 
porate power  has  been  abused  and  privilege  been 
unbridled.  The  Progressive  party,  so-called,  rep- 
resents an  extension  of  Grovernmental  power  in 
the  direction  of  an  autocratic  and  despotic  exer- 
cise of  the  executive  function,  and  its  existence 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  legislative  branch  has 
acted  ignorantly  and  narrowly.  Republicanism 

109 


ELYSIA 


is  a failure  because  it  is  an  inconsistent  and  an 
unnecessary  intermeddling  and  privilege-grant- 
ing policy.  Democracy  can  do  but  little,  for  it  has 
not  been  inculcated  with  the  idea  of  a great  Na- 
tionalism. 

What  we  need  is  a State,  and  what  we  need  is 
a great  National  Party  to  see  we  have  one.  Let 
us  turn  from  these  false  leaders  and  give  to  our 
Constitution,  beautiful  and  sufficient  in  its  form, 
the  power  to  put  its  ideals  into  practice.  We 
have  listened  to  these  demagogues  who  have  been 
educated  and  brought  up  with  pinhead  percep- 
tions long  enough.  Give  to  our  National  Gov- 
ernment the  power  to  levy  a direct  tax  on  land. 
Abolish  your  excise  taxes  and  taxes  of  every  other 
description.  Tax  opportunity,  not  its  exercise. 
Do  away  with  the  corporate  idea  entirely  and 
you  will  have  no  watered  stock  nor  inflated  valua- 
tions to  contend  with,  nor  great  subtle  influences 
at  work  corrupting  and  enslaving  the  people. 

Undertake  great  national  improvements,  have 
great  national  ideals,  put  faith  in  man  himself 
and  you  will  have  in  time  a God-fearing,  God-wor- 
shiping and  progressive  citizenship  that  ever 
grows  in  the  truth,  and  recognizes  the  perfection 
of  Jesus  Christ’s  divine  message. 

no 


PROGRESS 


Freedom  of  movement,  society  in  motion,  man 
in  action,  these  can  never  be  realities  unless  free- 
dom of  place  is  first  maintained.  Concentration 
is  stagnation,  and  capitalism  is  its  outgrowth. 
The  sign  of  something  unnatural,  a stimulant,  a 
narcotic  upon  which  Society  as  a sick  man  must 
be  always  feeding.  It  is  the  intemperate.  A link 
in  the  chain  of  immorality  that  has  its  origin  in 
selfishness  and  exploitationary  conceptions.  A 
part  of  that  idolatry  that  is  naught  in  reality  hut 
agnosticism,  atheism,  criminality,  ignorance, 
superstition.  A knowledge  of  the  true  law  is  hut 
an  unfolding  revelation,  a progress  in  idealisms. 
The  highest  fancies  and  conceptions  of  man  are 
but  limitations  of  that  which  is  not  only  possible, 
but  the  probable,  and  the  intended.  Man  is  imper- 
fect in  that  he  cannot  believe,  blind  in  that  he 
does  not  see,  wicked  in  that  he  does  not  strive, 
and  foolish  in  that  he  will  not  understand  the 
intent  and  meaning  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  knew  and 
understood  a world  greater  than  any  Jew  ever 
thought  but  him,  grander  than  any  man  ever 
dreamed  but  God,  and  if  we  think  our  progress 

ill 


ELYSIA 


great,  if  one  decade  reveals  wonders  to  the  world, 
what  ages  have  in  store  is  but  a thought  for  pious 
souls. 


112 


ELYSIA 


Slightly  above  this  world,  and  part  of  it,  though 
not  always  in.it,  is  a rare  atmosphere  of  strange 
constituency  and  elementary  power.  It  is  the  at- 
mosphere of  immortality.  Men  need  but  breathe 
it  and  it  will  make  them  live.  It  gives  to  them  a 
power  it  seems  they  could  not  have;  it  puts  a 
tinge  to  their  complexion  that  color  cannot  de- 
scribe, a look  upon  their  face  that  beams  and 
shines  with  confidence  and  strength  marked  in 
every  line.  It  is  the  Elysium  of  the  Elysian  fields 
awaiting  entrance  into  this  old  world.  The  Spirit 
of  Him  Who  Sent  Thee. 

Ages  may  come  and  go,  men  may  live  and  die. 
The  essence  of  their  lives,  a sweet  perfume,  be- 
comes a part  of  that  inspiring  power.  But  when 
that  day  shall  come,  what  we  shall  be  depends 
if  they  but  dwell  in  us,  then  we  in  they. 

And  so  we  labor  on.  Is  it  a blinded  end?  To 
make  this  world  a place  for  man.  ’Tis  thought 
that  draws  down  here  its  benediction.  Moulds 
and  shapes  the  contour  of  perfection,  and  in  the 
end  rewards  us  with  the  Time  and  Place  of 
Heaven. 


113 


ELYSIA 


So  may  it  be,  not  in  Bigotry,  but  in  Wisdom. 
Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven, 

Hallowed  be  Thy  name. 

Thy  Kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be  done, 

On  Earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven; 

Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread, 

And  forgive  us  our  debts  as  we  forgive  our 
debtors, 

And  lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us 
from  evil, 

For  Thine  is  the  Kingdom,  and  the  Power  and  the 
Glory,  forever  and  ever, 

Amen. 

What  better  proof  need  ye  that  He  was  the 
Son  of  Man? 

[the  end] 


114 


II  f;  f!  / 1;  V 

f/i.'ivi r;f.irv  or  ;m<  in 


ELYSIA 


The  greatest  course  of  political  action  ever  presented 
for  the  consideration  of  the  American  people. 

Agents  wanted  everywhere. 

Boys  and  girls  can  sell  it. 

Agent’s  discount  on  every  $1.00  order. 

Remit  to-day. 

Prices  15  cents  and  25  cents.  Postage  paid. 
Address : 

ELYSIA, 


Bloomington,  111. 


< 


Property  of 

JLtJPmi  JL  §ua(L 


